So you’ve completed a marathon? HOW CUTE!!” I saw this comical (albeit cocky) quote on a T-shirt while completing the Sunmart 50-mile ultra last December, and thought it very true. As a running coach, I’m seeing a growing population of athletes who are looking to push past traditional 26.2-mile marathons and test themselves by going longer.  

Do your non-cycling friends think you’re overly ambitious (or insane) when you tell them you’re going to ride 100 miles in a day? Well try telling them that you’re going to compete in a 750-mile ride—with a time limit. 

Dear Fitness Guru,

I recently started running for exercise. I have been doing really well but for the last couple of weeks, my knees have started hurting. What can I do? I don’t want to stop because it is really the only exercise I enjoy. —Denise, Park Slope

I missed out on gymnastics as a kid. Well, to be honest I never felt like I missed anything. The sport never really appealed to me—or so I thought. But when I walked into the giant gymnastics facility at Chelsea Piers to do the Gymtensity class and saw an adult gymnastics class in full swing, I may as well have been 10 years old again. 

The following is a five-month Half Ironman training program to ramp up for a Half Ironman Triathlon. Shown below are mileage expectations for the build up period leading up to the race. Doing the mileage described probably won’t be enough to qualify you for Hawaii, but it will provide you with a solid foundation for a great racing experience. This is a general guideline. Depending on your skill sets, you will need to make some adjustments. For instance, if you are aquatically challenged, then you will need to do more yards than I have shown.

New Yorkers take business trips—some a lot more than others. Trips interfere with training and often discourage people from setting race goals. But with a little bit of planning you can turn travel into a training opportunity.

In a prior article, I introduced a notion that training for sports competition at the elite level was the antithesis of a healthy activity. Since many people seem to think that athletes are almost by definition healthy, I thought I might develop that idea a bit further in this follow-up article.

In her new book, Run Your First Marathon,Grete Waitz, nine-time winner of the New York City marathon, points out one of the wonderful draws of the marathon. “No matter who we are,” she writes, “at some point we are all first-time marathoners. All of us share that. That’s the beauty of the race — Olympians and all-comers share the same event.”

I'm don't remember exactly when I joined my first running club, but I have vivid memories of the club itself. It was the Ann Arbor (Michigan) Track Club, and someone I'd met at a race must have persuaded me to attend a track workout. 

Perhaps you’ve gone the route of zero training or preparation before your season-launching swagger to the ski lifts in November. You may then remember how bad of an idea it was. You skied your brains out on the first day and ended up sore as heck — or as sometimes happens to green legs, ended up taking out a knee.