The Boston Marathon

One of the biggest and most anticipated Marathons just happened this past Monday. The Boston Marathon attracted over 36,000 in this year's event. I live in New Hampshire, about an hour from Boston and everybody gets very excited for the event. Many drive into the city to experience the exciting atmosphere.

People always ask me, since I am a distance runner, if I will ever run the race. I would love to run the Boston Marathon someday. With a busy college track schedule in the spring, it is impossible to run the marathon until I am out of college. A 26 mile race takes a large toll on the body for a longer period of time that most people think. The body takes weeks to recover which is the reason most distance runners who like to compete in multiple marathons only run in a couple per year.

Someday I will run the Boston Marathon so I can say I ran in one of the most prestigious marathons in the world. I believe it is a special feeling to run the race and viewers respect the runners for it,

The Best Exercises for Improving Running Form

Distance runners focus on strengthening key muscle groups to become faster runners.  These exercises can make you a substantially fast runner by improving posture, lengthening your stride, and keeping you feeling tall when racing.

To begin, the abdominal muscles are are extremely important to prevent a runner from hunching over when feeling fatigue late in a race. I work my abdominal muscles every other day. I work my abs by doing 10 minutes of planks, crunches, bicycles, leg raises, toe touches, Russian twists, and many more exercises.

The second muscle group that is necessary to strengthen in order to improve performance are the gluteus and hips. Having strong gluteus can help you run with better form, therefor using less energy. It also allows the runner to have a longer stride on each step. If a runner can step a couple inches further on each stride over a 5 mile race, much time can be made up.

Having strong hamstrings is another very important muscle group to strengthen. These muscles can really help a runner with speed and running up hills. Whether you are running a 400 meter sprint or side by side with a competitor at the end of a 5 mile race, having strong hamstrings will help you sprint and beat out the competition. The main hamstring exercises my team does are weighted single leg Bulgarian split squats and single leg deadlifts.

Idolizing Professional Runners

The olympics is one of the only times where viewers who do not compete in or follow track and field actually watch the events and hear about the professionals who have been training for years.  People become very interested in the different track events and the individuals competing in them. For a track athlete like myself, I follow these athletes on social media and read about them every day. I idolize these professional distance runners because I can relate to how hard they train and the strict lifestyle that they live to be successful.

I also understand exactly how fast their personal records are. Some of the American professionals that I follow are Leo Manzano (ran a mile in 3:50), Galen Rupp (ran a 5k in 12:58) and Nick Symmonds (ran the half mile in 1:42.9) 

Knowing how amazing these runners are is the reason I am very interested in how they train, what their daily routines are like, how many miles they run per day, and what kind of food they eat. I believe that the closer I can match the training of these professionals the better runner I will be. 

Running with Teammates

How many activities can you think of become easier when someone doing it with you, pushing to working harder? With distance running, I find this one of the most important aspect to quality training. Running with teammates makes training easier. This goes for almost any sport because teammates push each other to improve and maintain the motivation. The unique part of training with other in distance runners is that is allows your body to push forward easier than your mind thought would be possible.

Who wants to do a 14 mile long run alone? Part of distance training includes a long run one time per week that is 3 to 5 miles longer than your usual run. This run can be awfully boring with nobody to talk with to pass the time. The long run can also be a struggle during the last 3 miles on some days. Running with a team makes the time go by much quicker while also maintaining the same pace throughout the entire run. Knowing that I will have my team to talk with, crack jokes and tell stories with on a 14 mile run is much more fun and exciting than knowing I will be alone in silence, constantly looking at my watch to see how many more miles I have left to run.