Do you count your steps? And I don't mean in the "10,000 steps a day" kind of way. I mean when you are running, do you count how many steps per inhale and exhale? A lot of people do. And a lot of people have never thought about doing that, because to tell you the truth, that sounds a little runneurotic, doesn't it? Now, I'm not telling you that you should or shouldn't count how many steps per breath. It's way more fun to count the number of cute doggos you pass. 🐶 But it's a simple and...
14 days ago • 3 min read
"I don't really want to run the day before the long run, Coach." This is a comment I get fairly often. This time it was from a new marathoner who was coming back for her second marathon training plan. To be clear, there is no magic formula for marathon training. You can still train for a marathon and not run the day before the long run. (there's also people on the internet "raw dogging" marathons straight off the couch, but that's another story.) But there's a very specific reason I highly...
21 days ago • 4 min read
It seems sort of obvious that to get faster, you need to run faster. At least some of the time. Yes, slow, easy, aerobic running should be the majority of your training if you are a distance runner, but if your goal is to run faster, slow running can't be the only thing you do. But what if you HATE speedwork? You're not alone. Running hard is, well, hard. Physically, you are pushing yourself to an uncomfortable place, which we are biologically wired to avoid. Mentally, we can feel anxiety and...
28 days ago • 3 min read
If you're a marathon runner, Michigan isn't just a state. It's a dragon to be slayed. If you've never heard of it, ignorance is bliss. The Michigan is a brutal alternating-pace workout invented by a Michigan track coach in the 1970s, originally built off a Prefontaine session at Oregon, and decades later it's still the workout distance runners bring up like a war story. Marathon pace, then faster, then faster still, then back down, with no rest between any of it. The whole point is to make...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
I am not exaggerating when I say my pre-race nerves were almost debilitating. Not quite a panic attack, but close. Heart pounding, stomach turning, shallow breathing and the gun hadn't even gone off. I was determined to solve this mystery of why this kept happening to me. So I fell into a rabbit hole of breathing techniques, visualization, and cognitive conditioning. I began to practice consistently, not just on race morning but throughout training. That combination changed how I raced. And...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
"But it's a dry heat," my father always says about the brutally hot climate in his hometown of Pheonix, Arizona. And I know what you are thinking: when it's 114F (45C) it doesn't matter if it's dry or not, it's just HOT! But besides the humidity, there's something else that affects how you feel (and run) in the heat. And it doesn't have anything to do with the weather or even how much you've adapted to it. It's how well you tolerate uncertainty. (I know, you weren't expecting me to say that,...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
"I can tell there's something different about you since the last time we talked, Claire. You have this new, calm energy." That's what Matt Chittim, host of the Rambling Runner podcast told me as we were recording his show. I told him that was just about the highest compliment I could receive. Because I wasn't always like that. I would get so nervous before my local half marathon that I would almost get sick. My nerves seemed to only escalate no matter how hard I tried to calm them down. Once...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Let me ask you a question. I have spent the last 10 years writing this newsletter every single week. The vast majority of the runners I send it to open it and tell me they look forward to it every Thursday. I share strategies on running, nutrition, mental strength, and more, and I love being a resource you can trust. As you might be able to guess by the refreshed look of this page today (how do you like the new colors? 😍), the Planted Runner is going through some much-needed changes and...
2 months ago • 4 min read
Most of us have been taught practice is perfect. If you want to learn to play the flute, you practice your scales and your finger placement over and over again until you can do it without thinking. If you're a singer, you practice your songs over and over again until they are perfect for the performance. And when you have a presentation to give, you go over your notes and your Power Point until you are confident you've got the material nailed. So it's not a surprise that most runners want to...
3 months ago • 4 min read