erday it was 80 degrees and sunny.  Today the thermometer is stuck at about 45 and it is alternating between hard rain and mist.  I reluctantly throw on my training gear, grab my dryland poles and head out the door for some bounding intervals.  Before I even make it to our gate, I turn around and head back inside to get more clothes.

As I start running, the rain is coming down heavily and I have 3 layers on hoping to stay warm.  A few years ago I nearly froze to death on a day like today when the temperature dropped and the began to freeze, so I take no chances.  I am wearing tights, a thermal shirt, a jacket and a raincoat on top with a gore-tex hat to keep me dry. 

Luckily, the rain subsides during my warmup and by the time I arrive at my interval hill I am stripped down to my shirt.  There must be something about the weather that makes this a popular spot because there ... Read More »

Today was a tough day.  I have been in Lake Placid, NY for 4 days now preparing for the National Coaches Conference that I'm organizing.  I've been trying to train with the US Ski Team as well, but this pesky conference has been keeping me up late at night and today it all came crumbling down.

It was not a surprise.  After three days in a row of fairly tough training with less than five hours of sleep each night, I knew it was going to happen eventually.  Unfortunately, this morning happened to be a bad day for it to happen.  The US Team had a 9km skate time trial scheduled and the course was tough.  It began with a gradual uphill and ended with a monster 13-minute climb.

We took off out of the gate and everything felt very comfortable.  Everyone was relatively calm as we fell into single file up the first gradual hill.

Then Kris Freeman hit ... Read More »