Should we ever find ourselves in a world where money could buy you race results, who would you hire to be your training partner? Here are the top 5 potentials broken down and simplified to make your decision easier:

1) The Road Runner

Record: Entered the running scene back in 1949 and hasn’t lost a race (or any of his speed) since. Has a staggering 100% head-to-head winning percentage against greatest rival, Wile E Coyote, and one of the first to pioneer barefoot running.

Why a good training partner: With his absurdly high cadence and foot sexpect plan on wicked tempo runs, sub 2 hour marathons, never losing to a coyote. Celebrity factor a bonus.

Downside: never getting a nice and easy recovery run and having to constantly dodge dynamite and ACME bombs can take its toll. Plus, he only runs on the road… Boring.

2) The Tortoise

Record: Won the most epic races of all times against the world-renowned and favored-to-win Hare.

Why a good training partner: Can teach you the art of pacing and keeping your eyes on the prize.  Plus, who doesn’t love an underdog?

Downside:  No longer runs.  Because of his quick exit from the racing scene and short-lived career, rumors abound about possible use of performance enhancing drugs.  Nobody needs that kind of publicity.

3) Energizer Bunny

Record:  Holder of record for most consecutive number of miles run without stopping.  And he’s still going strong even after 23 years.

Why a good training partner: Ultramarathoners will benefit most from this guy’s ridiculous good endurance.  Style points: Has some kickin’ shades.

Downside: He just doesn’t know when to call it a day.  He’s an IT Band syndrome flare-

up and stress fracture waiting to happen.

4) Sonic the Hedgehog

Record: World’s fastest hedgehog; sponsored by Sega.

Why a good training partner: Keep this guy around and you are sure to see some PRs in your upcoming races…. he’s got one heck of a kick, and after he acquires 50 gold rings, he goes in to super sonic mode.

Downside: Can be impatient, his tuck-and-roll-and-destroy technique is frowned upon by most race directors, and is undoubtedly doping.  Note for triathletes: can’t swim.

5) The Running Man

Record: Spotted (and mostly in poor form) on dance floors across America.

Why a good training partner: Can teach you proper mid foot-landing and the importance of form in your path to success.

Downside: Never actually makes any forward progress, and often confused for Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 80′s movie of the same title.

It’s going to be a strange week in Grand Rapids.  Not only was there a (super) full moon, but a rather large percentage of the GR populous will be taking part in at least one of the Riverbank Run events on Saturday.  Runners have been tirelessly training for this weekend, but who has prepared everyone else, the ones who have to live and work with the runners in daily life?

Runners are real head-cases in the days leading up to a big race.  Anything and everything poses a direct threat to race success.  Cancel the weekly softball game, skip on trying that new Thai restaurant, and no thank you to a night of drinks and darts. And at home, forget getting a hand in the kitchen (do you know how many Riverbank dreams a year are dashed because of a garlic chopping incident?) or any help with the chores (hey, vacuums are heavy, and I’m tapering).  Don’t be surprised though when you receive a request to do laundry and it’s just a single pair of socks… lucky race-day socks: much more important than you’d think. Try not to overhear pep talks in the bathroom mirror starting with “Hey tiger,” and expect an otherwise rather stoic demeanor the rest of the time.  Jumping for joy could easily lead to a twisted ankle.

I’ve been there.  In the week leading up to my race last fall, I was border-line paranoid.  When you’re super pumped for a race, you don’t want something to happen in the final days that would completely throw away all the hard work.  I’d spin counter-clock-wise two times every time I passed through a doorway and keep a little salt in my pocket to toss over my shoulder should the need arise.  But I distinctly remember the Wednesday before my race.  I jumped and clicked my heels in mid-air (not typical behavior for most, I know, but fairly normal for me) and then landed kind of funny.  I froze.  My back-to-back long runs flashed before my eyes.  Much to my dismay, no crutches or electric scooters were within reach, so I cautiously took an un-assisted step forward.  My hip, it felt weird.  Painful weird, or just tweaked-and-needs-to-be-loosened-up-with-maybe-a-spritz-of-windex weird? Couldn’t tell. Another step.  Panic mode.  Really? This is what is going to side-line me?

I woke up the next day just fine–completely and entirely healthy.  No problem whatsoever.  But like I said: head-case.

In these last few days before Riverbank, be prepared for some odd behavior and some really out-there excuses for passing on movie night — just can’t risk the movie choice being My Dog Skip…It’s emotionally draining and leaves you in no condition to run a 25k…Trust me. Instead give your runner a hug, and let them know it’s going to be okay.  You can rag on them after race day, cause if you do it before, you’ll surpass head-case and move on to diva… and no one wants a runner diva on their hands.

Remember: A run that starts out blegh and tiresome is not destined to be so in its entirety. 

Everyone’s dealt with them, nobody likes them, but sometimes they’re just inevitable.  Junk miles — the mentally taxing first how-ever-many miles of your run you drag your body through before finally settling in to your groove. Or, as I like to call them, the Tootsie Pops of running, because with a little persistence, you’ll get past that hard outer shell of those first miles and eventually work your way to the good stuff.

I have to admit: I’ve been seeing a lot of those junk miles lately and haven’t had the desire to work through them.  Call it what you will, but when I’m feeling beat at mile 2 of a long run, stopping sounds like the best option… if it’s tough now, how in the world am I going to get in another six miles?  Cue the excuses and justifications and, before I know it, I’m walking home.  The bummer about these types of runs?  They’re confidence killers and bring up all sorts of doubt.

Doubt is a powerful force.  It stops a run before it even starts.  I was feeling so out of it at the start of all my runs lately that I began to get pretty frustrated and began to forget there was an abundance of sweet, sweet mileage waiting for me just past this wall of junk miles. But just as I was ready to call it quits on yet another run, I was forced to just run through it.  Maybe I shouldn’t say forced – I was strongly urged/peer pressured in the kindest of manners by the person I was running with to keep going.  That’s all it took; just one time sticking it out through those junk miles and realizing, oh ya, it can feel good to run even if it sucks at first.  So the run I was ready to end at 3 miles ended up being about 7, and I have to say, the last 4 were the best.

Here’s what’s been going on at Striders as of late… gearing up for Riverbank and getting psyched for race day!

I feel about 10Ks the same as I do about high heels: they’re a necessary evil that is borderline torture and always leaves me hurting.  I try to avoid them at all costs.  But there comes a time where fears must be faced, and since I knew my endurance and mental resilience were hardly at their peak, I opted to save the heels for another day and instead tackle the Reeds Lake 10K Challenge.

(If you are unfamiliar with the challenge, learn more about it here)

Saturday morning – it was on.  I ate my standard pre-run 1.5 pieces of toast with crunchy peanut butter, washed it down with a cocktail of tums and ibuprofen, then headed to the store.  I hadn’t planned on going too crazy with my run, but after accepting Ben’s offer to run with me…well, things changed.

When we set off, I felt great.  We chatted for a little bit and I thought, alright maybe this is do-able.  15 seconds later, I thought otherwise.  I stopped talking. Ben was the one with a watch on so I couldn’t check our pace, but at mile 1, he said the words I never like to hear: “So, we took that first mile a little fast…” He called it “time in the bank.” I called it a foreclosure of my precious energy stores.  As I dragged myself up the first hill to the rock a half mile later, my mind went in to a total tailspin and I was ready to be done.  Spent and doubtful 1.5 miles in to a 10K is not a happy place to be.  After I voiced my doubts halfway up the hill, I gave up any hope of getting out of the run.  It was time to settle down and get to work.

Thinking back, I feel like I had to work so much harder because every step of the way I would think to myself, I want to stop. This is so not fun. Why am I doing this? Am I dying? Why do runners do this to themselves?  And even though 99% of me wanted to stop, I felt like I had to keep going.  Running is so much more difficult when you have to convince yourself to do it.  Enter the golden asset that is the running partner – had Ben not been running with me, I would have turned back not even 15 minutes into the run.  And despite all the mental struggle and few insults I may have telepathically hurled Ben’s way around mile 3 (something I telepathically apologized for at mile 5), Ben managed to push me and talk me through finishing one of my hardest runs to a 10K PR.  Post-run Accelerade has never tasted so good.

I think it takes speed, stamina, and a certain kind of crazy to run hard.  While I know I have a ways to go with speed and stamina, I look back at what I went through to finish that 10K and am certain I’ve unearthed a lit bit of that certain kind of crazy.  Crazy is what convinces you to keep going when nothing is keeping you from stopping. Crazy is what asks if you could have pushed just a little harder when not even 5 minutes ago you thought you were going to puke.  I don’t know what else could possibly explain why on earth I would ever want to do that again.  But strangely, I do.

Often times, “fan communities” will get grouped together and labeled based on their shared extreme affinity for something. In less delicate words, I would say that geeks get nicknamed for what they get geeked out about, i.e. Trekkies for Star Trek, Cheeseheads for Packers, and Beliebers for Justin Bieber (it physically hurt me to type that last one).  So today I have for you a little glimpse into the world of running specialty.  We too get geeked, only it’s about all things running.  To say shoes, clothes, and watches would be to broad.  In reality, we like to break it down to the foams and fibers.  I’ll admit it. I’m a Woolie (fan of wool), and I do love an intense conversation about midsole technology and theory (a regular Foam-osopher, if you will).  The list just goes on, including some Spec-tics out there (people wanting to know and question all the specs of a shoe) and Lace-ists (if you want to debate about asymmetrical  lacing, this is who to talk to).

With that in mind, let’s continue to further take a look at the world of running specialty here at Striders.

The morning was as delightful as ever–an early start took me and a few others from the store to Canonsburg State Game Area where we met up with our Suunto and Salomon rep, Marshall.  Not only did we gear up to test out the Suunto Quest watch and foot pod, but we also had the chance to sink our feet into some Salomons and hit the trails for a thorough test drive.  Once the shoes were on and before we set off, we did the funny dance of moving about to test the initial flexibility and feel.  Brows furrowed in concentration to start forming thoughts and questions.  But only so much can be deduced from simply wearing the shoes.  It was time to run.

The conversation post-run was lively, but on our drive back from the trails, the true geeking began.  What’s the drop on the Mission?  And stack height? How about the midsole, did it feel too firm for the roads? Talk to me about the OS Tendon.  And we just kept going… I wonder what the added flex grooves really do.  The Speedcross, how was it on the packed trail? Really, less of a heel-toe offset than the Mission?  And then there was a little bit of a tangent… Hold the phone, the foam for the Peregrine 2 is softer than last year’s model?  Travesty!

Someone made a comment about the awesome impression we could make by using our midsole technology jargon as first-date conversation material.  Sadly, I’m sure we’ve all tried it.  Forget politics and the economy, what is your stance on the current state of dual-density posting? Before you answer, I should warn you–this could be a deal breaker.

But really, this is how we talk.  The jargon flies and we make references to other models, present and past.  We question, criticize, and debate, and only on the rarest occasions  are there ever tears.  From the latest shoe down to detergent, we like to know for ourselves what’s going on.  Forget what the box says, lets test this firsthand.

So if you’re ever in the store and it seems like while we talk about foam and midsole technology we get so excited we’re practically falling off our fitting stools, trust me, it’s for reals.

Rarely am I stressed while I’m reclining.  But in this case, there was a bright light in my eyes, some lady hunched over me, and one gloved hand holding a very expensive high-tech tooth cleaner while another other holds my mouth open.  I looked at the embroidery on her coat: “Erika.”  I momentarily wondered if this was indeed Erika or if it was someone else just borrowing Erika’s coat.  Regardless, she chatted away while she scraped and poked and flossed and prodded.  I stared over her shoulder at a flat screen TV, or rather, it stared at me.  Some x-rays of my teeth were pulled up on it,  and I counted my fillings to pass the time.  Then I thought of the pasta salad I had packed for lunch that day, prompting “Erika” (still hand’t decided whether or not it was actually her) to grab the mini-mouth vacuum and suction up the consequential saliva.  After some time passed, I thought of lasagna, just to see what would happen. She reached for the suction tube.  Totally called it.

So what does this have to do with running?  Well, not much, except for the fact that it was as I had my teeth cleaned that I realized what it was I wanted to write about today for the blog.  It was between the flossing demo and my fluoride treatment that I concluded there’s more to running than just running… there’s more to being healthy than just exercising.  I sat in that chair with a paper bib clipped to my shirt with plenty of time to contemplate why I felt like my running had plateaued.  And it’s not even like one of those high plateaus you’d find in Utah.  It’s a frustratingly endless stretch of flat land about 18 feet above sea level.

It’s not like I have any particular performance goals with my running.  I just have this general one where I would rather feel strong and solid rather than awful and sluggish.  And since I’ve been putting in the minutes and miles on my feet, and washing that down regularly with yoga a few times a week, there must be more to running than just running.  Yes, it takes running to get better at running, but it also takes energy to run, and energy most readily comes in the form of proper fuel.  We don’t expect cars to run without (crazily high-priced) gas, so how can we expect ourselves to run without some kind of fuel: fuel in

the form of rest and proper nutrition.

Too often have I run on empty reserves, and those are the worst runs.  I blame it on being tired and busy, leaving me just enough time for something that can be served over milk and eaten with a spoon.  But really, who ever increased fitness and performance on a bowl of cereal, Wheaties excluded.

Nutrition is one of those touchy subjects.  Immediately, we become defensive, thinking of what we’d supposedly lose should we begin monitoring what we’re fueling up with: delicious foods like pizza and ice cream.  I think the same thing.  I love my treats.  It’s hard to look past the delicious sacrifices and see instead what we’d gain: strength, energy, alertness.  But what’s the secret to realizing that?  Couldn’t tell ya.  It’s one thing to acknowledge it, and it’s another to act on it.  I truly think the trick, though, is giving it a shot.   We posted on our Facebook page not too long ago an article from Runner’s World about making small adjustments and small goals in our eating habits in order to benefit not just our running but our health in general.  That’s the key.  Attempting too much too fast really burns you out, and then you end up like me after my first attempt at a juicing cleanse–elbow deep in a gallon of ice cream waiting for a large 2-topping pizza to be delivered to my front door.

Setting achievable goals makes an otherwise daunting and off-putting task worth trying.  And once you notice the difference, it’s tough to ignore the results.

So repeat after me: eating styles smart and nutritious lead to running conditions strong and auspicious…but I can still have dessert.

This week, I was able to see future product that any running geek would probably pay to
see. I got my hands on future Nike product for the coming summer and holiday seasons (July-December). Oh boy was I excited… I had this date on my calendar for over a month. I believe it was like a runner’s Christmas for me. About a month ago, Nike had an “Apple-type” press conference to debut new technologies for the upcoming year. Nike described how their new track uniforms were aerodynamic due to golf ball like dimples that reduced drag, unveiled a new racing flat that basically was one piece of knit with no excess waste, and debuted the new Zoom Victory Elite…the fastest distance spike on this planet.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on many of these products including: FlyKnit Racer, Zoom Victory Elite, Structure Triax 16, and Zoom Matumbo 2 among others. I’ll give two sneak peeks today…

The Zoom Victory Elite! I just about cried getting my hands on one of these. It was beautiful. I’ll highlight a few important features. The upper is brand new with exposed Flywire for a better arch wrap and dynamic fit. The iconic hole in the heel is still present as the FlyWire is so strong. The spike plate screams fast. The plate is almost completely carbon fiber; giving the spike a very lightweight yet aggressive feel. The 6 spike arrangement is pretty standard for previous Victory users. The Zoom Victory Elite does not come at a cheap price though, fast has deep pockets. A cool $180 will get you these fast flying spikes. Look for them in the Olympics this year in the 1500m event!

The second product I was really excited about was the FlyKnit Racer. This new racing flat,geared towards marathoners, is a very lightweight, sock like shoe. The one piece upper material is knit so that there is little waste and no wasted cuts and seams. This provides a sock like fit that is soft and dynamic. The feel was absolutely amazing. It was soft, yet supportive and is really a great feat of engineering. There you have it! I also did an interview that will be presented by Striders TV (aka our Facebook page), with a Nike representative. She answered a few questions about new training shoes coming out this summer and holiday seasons. Check that out, as well as my personal, ever updating blog: http://runnercool.tumblr.com/ Stay running, stay cool.

The streets of East Grand Rapids flowed with a green sea of 4,950 registered participants at the Irish Jig this year.  And that doesn’t even count all the family, friends, dogs, and volunteers that lined the course. That is a whole lot of people.  The even cooler part was that these were people I knew.  That’s the fun in a big local race like the Irish Jig–the people that are out there running are the ones you bump carts with at the grocery store or the barista at the Starbucks down the road.

For the majority, runners are there to have a good time, finish their first 5K, or even just get a run in for the day.  But for a comparatively smaller group, the rush of the event is in the racing, and they are there to throw down.  They’ve spent time focusing on splits, speed, and stamina–the keys to a solid 5K. And at the starting line, the prospect of a PR hangs heavy in the air.  The element of head-to-head competition brings out a kind of primal instinct to outrun the person in front of you…and the next one after that…and the one after that.

The racing element of the 5K makes it my least favorite distance to run but my favorite to spectate.  I’m always in awe of how fast people can run, and I was reminded of that as I watched the lead pack crest the hill down the road and then race by as I took pictures this weekend.  I had a blast watching the race, and now that the spring 5K season has kicked off, I look forward to seeing a few more.