Plant-Based Diet for Athletes

Could Your Long Runs Be Doing More Harm than Good?

By: Matt Frazier

Everyone knows that the cornerstone of any marathon training program, and especially any ultramarathon plan, is the long run.

Well, guess what? It turns out everyone might be wrong.

Eliminating the sacred long run

No LSD Brian Mackenzie and the people at CrossFit Endurance are training their athletes to run 100-mile ultramarathons on less than 30 miles per week. Even more incredible is that they do this without running more than a half marathon in training.

How?

The idea, as detailed on the CrossFit Endurance FAQ page but explained in more depth in Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Body, is based on the distinction between aerobic and anaerobic exercise.

For those who somehow avoided the lesson on the two systems in gym class, here’s the two-line version: (more…)

The Best Stuff I Read Last Week — 'Failure' Edition

By: Matt Frazier

It makes me a little sad to report that I’m not going to be running 100 miles on June 4th. But I’m okay with that. The reason? No excuses or blaming external circumstances. I honestly just haven’t found the discipline recently to get out there for 20, 30, and 50 mile training runs. It’s not […]

Your Workout is Eating You Alive

By: guest

Note: This is a guest post from Johnny B. Truant, of JohnnyBTruant.com. I’ve got way too much going on. First of all, I’m a budding endurance athlete. I decided to train for my first marathon last fall, and spent a long Ohio winter clocking runs in the freezing cold before the sun was up. Second, […]

The Lightest Neutral Cushioning Shoe on the Market — New Balance 890 Review and Giveaway

By: Matt Frazier

First off today, I just want to take a minute and say thank you for your incredibly supportive comments on my Boston Marathon post. You guys blew me away with the words of encouragement, and I really appreciate all of you taking the time to do that. With the time I would have spent writing […]

Boston Marathon 2011: My Recap (and My One Regret)

By: Matt Frazier

You probably know that I’m not a huge fan of writing race recaps. Mostly, it’s because writing so many words about myself, my race strategy, my feelings at each mile, and so on seems kind of weird. And with a marathon being 26.2 miles, recaps are necessarily long, so I always wonder if anyone is […]

The Best Stuff I Read Last Week

By: Matt Frazier

Once again, my “weekend post” comes at the very tail end of the weekend… only three hours to spare! It was a busy weekend, but I’m not complaining — “busy” comprised a 9-mile trail run (my last of any real difficulty before Boston next Monday), brewing beer (a dunkelweizen) and grilling up some vegan sausages, […]

Sunday Links! (Awesome SXSW Edition)

By: Matt Frazier

The weekend link post seems to be a popular thing these days. And since I’ve been finding a lot of good stuff recently that doesn’t always tie in directly to what I’m writing about, I’m going to give it a try. Maybe Sundays, maybe Saturdays. The links in this first one are from people I […]

The Minimalist Guide to Demystifying Heart Rate Monitor Training (Plus a Chance to Win One)

By: Matt Frazier

If you’ve never tried training with a heart rate monitor, I can’t really blame you. First you’ve got to do some math to figure out your training zones. Then you’ve got to memorize a complicated workout where you’re in Zone 2 for 10 minutes, District 3 for 5, and Area 51 for another 15 minutes […]

On the Boston Marathon Qualifying Standards Debacle

By: Matt Frazier

The little blue-and-golden tickets that get a runner into the world’s most famous marathon just became a lot harder to come by. I first heard it from Caitlin at Healthy Tipping Point. Having had my head in the sand for the past few weeks, my first thought was that it was an early April Fool’s […]

The Newcomer's Guide to No Meat Athlete

By: Matt Frazier

As bloggers have started to publish reviews of my new ebook, Marathon Roadmap, lots of new people are showing up to check out No Meat Athlete. And even those of you who have been around for a while probably weren’t here at the beginning, and therefore missed the rare gold nugget to be panned in […]