Essays
Cutting-edge benefits from being race-fit at 83
After being hit by a car, the entrepreneur was afraid to cross the street. Training for a marathon helped her take back her life.
My dogs love every run, with no goals, measurements or expectations. I need that right now.
Simple steps to rebooting your fitness and reinvigorating your running goals
Run the world’s largest night race and you’re bound to have one of the most unusual experiences of your life
The former soccer phenom was burnt out and angry. Then he started running every day, no matter what.
Faced with heart damage and debilitating long-haul COVID-19, the author asks himself hard questions, and keeps dreaming.
What if you had the chance to redress nature’s imbalance, change the luck of the genetic draw, level the playing field. What would you do?
As those who fell short at the Olympic Trials demonstrate, accepting failure and rekindling dreams is the essence of what we do.
Time hasn’t stopped, it just feels that way. Runners know better, and that knowledge of passing time can help us optimize each day and be present in each hour.
Spring smells like Boston, and travel, hinting at fresh possibilities that lift the spirit.
Three simple strategies to keep ourselves moving forward while we wait for change.
An award-winning science fiction writer paints a compelling — and rather disturbing — vision of running in the near future.
Our running footprints can make any route special with memories of growing fitness, strength and speed.
Winter has a way of making every run an adventure and every setting magical — offering the chance to see the world new and fresh as we get in a great workout.
Lifelong runners often stay adaptable and motivated to run their best at any age by reseting their expectations, routines and goals.
After arthritis took running away long ago, this coach found himself jumping into a virtual race and awakening a lost drive.
A few running steps remind the author how integrated and ingrained running is in his life — and body.
There’s a reason you feel tired: Not knowing where the end is. How the running mindset can help, and how living through the pandemic might make us better runners.
Pain can be a performance ally if you take steps to manage your perspective on it.
Watch a cross country race and you'll be reminded of all that is good in the sport.
6 key perspectives I’ve learned from my favorite psychology books
A doctor’s question reveals how completely the sport is woven into one runner’s life.
Embracing both sides of your running personality can help sustain you for a lifetime.
To convert resolutions to reality — in running or society — requires commitment to creating new habits that lead to consistent action.
5 Lessons on training, injury, recovery and racing revealed from looking at trends in training logs.
We can’t wait for luck. It takes courage to take responsibility for our attitude, growth and success.
In an excerpt from Running the Dream, Matt Fitzgerald describes a workout during his summer of training with the Northern Arizona Elite.
Today's lack of feedback and progress makes it hard to find flow. Here’s a plan to restore it.
Dathan Ritzenhein reveals what he has learned from three of his best training partners through the years, and why now is a great time to apply those lessons.
The skills that allow you to adapt and endure during a race can get you through the challenge and unpredictability of the coronavirus outbreak.
The removal of races gives us an unexpected off-season to become the runners we dream about being.
There's nothing quite like going long to develop your running body—and refresh your mind.
When life has enough challenge, we don’t need big running goals—but we still need running.
Approaching the Trials, as runners we’re more than fans, we’re part of the tribe.
Every runner has the opportunity to enjoy the feeling of fitness and flow from floating fast.
Each run can be better by making your training patterns more like an elite's, plus being willing to give yourself a break.
Real change requires simple steps (which doesn't make them easy).
One runner reflects on why he keeps answering the call of the clock to chase a 5-minute mile each year, 26 years on—and why it is valuable, even if he falls short.
Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein shares how he, and other champions, continue to have success by adapting training and goals over the years.
Why runners—starting in youth—should schedule peaks, breaks and variety into their running year.
An annual ascent goal produces strength, injury-proof fitness, and a satisfying challenge.
When training and focus come together with the right conditions, breakthrough races are possible. Dathan Ritzenhein recalls his best race ever.
No matter your athletic ability, running accepts all and keeps giving for a lifetime.
A competitor learns another way to appreciate the sport when she’s confined to the Boston sidelines instead of running with her friend.
A running buddy sees your limitless potential, celebrates the best, tolerates the worst, and is always up for a questionable adventure—like a birthday run in the Grand Canyon.
The current college admissions scandal is the logical extreme of a culture that values results over progress.