fitness

Take your running to heart – Heart Zone Training (HZT), that is!  Long-time ultra-marathoner and triathlete Sally Edwards collaborated with Dr. Carl Foster to compile decades of experience and research into Be a Better Runner.  Their resulting HZT program allows each runner to tailor training programs to his or her own fitness level by targeting specific heart rates based on a threshold heart rate, which will be unique to each person.    I’ve recently begun dabbling in distance races, and while I’ll always be a mid-pack runner, I want to make the most of my experience in training.  This

I've been running for a few years and recently began participating in distance races, so Hal Higdon’s Marathon caught my attention.  With decades of experience, Higdon and his training plans are well-respected.  He provides an overview of endurance running and speaks generally about training strategies, covering all the expected topics, such as building mileage, speed work, nutrition, injury prevention, etc.  The information is presented as a guide rather than a mandate, acknowledging that runners should tweak training practices to their unique needs and goals.  The book draws heavily from

I found a lot of helpful information in The Art of Running Faster.  Like many how-to running books, I had to skim for what interested me and skip what didn’t.  I found learning about fartleks and other training strategies extremely helpful. While I wasn’t very interested in reading about specific races and runners, I did enjoy some of the pictures.  As a new runner, when talking about a picture in which one runner is finishing strong and his pursuer has “started to labour and over-stride”, I couldn’t see the difference and would have appreciated knowing how Goater could tell which was flagging

I found a lot of helpful information in The Art of Running Faster. Like many how-to running books, I had to skim for what interested me and skip what didn’t. I found learning about fartleks and other training strategies extremely helpful. While I wasn’t very interested in reading about specific races and runners, I did enjoy some of the pictures. As a new runner, when talking about a picture in which one runner is finishing strong and his pursuer has “started to labour and over-stride,” I couldn’t see the difference and would have appreciated knowing how Goater could tell which runner was

I recently used coolrunning.com's  Couch Potato to 5K plan to start jogging and have since run two 5Ks. While that plan ultimately worked for me, I so wish I had discovered Run Your Butt Off!, from Runner’s World, first. The RYBO plan addressed the things that I found most challenging and would have made my journey more pleasant.

Firstly, the authors insist that you run very slowly. I thought I had been running slowly, but discovered otherwise the first time I ran with another person. The authors describe exactly what running slowly looks like and I can tell you first hand it makes all the

Although Williams is primarily a triathlete, her book is really for anyone looking for inspiration on their journey to fitness. According to her, this book is for “real people with jobs and kids and love handles”. As a plus-sized athlete, she advocates concepts like abandoning self-consciousness, being slow, embracing bodily fluids, and becoming an active wear advocate. She asks her readers to examine their motivations for losing weight and to change their focus to being fit.

In Chapter 44, titled “Be a Pit Bull”, Williams says “You’ve got your jaws clamped on to the pants leg of your dreams