I imagine it's pretty obvious to those who know me that I am a big Carolina Panthers fan; they're one of the main topics of my posts to Facebook these days. If you keep up with that sort of thing, you'll also know that they lost their playoff game yesterday against the Seattle Seahawks. I did see some things from the team that gave me cause to be optimistic for next season, but overall, the game wasn't pretty so I was pretty bummed last night and I resolved to start my half

With this new year, I am officially starting my half marathon training regimen. I've been looking forward to sinking my teeth into this next phase of training for a few months now and especially since my hamstring has healed up and I'm able to put some distance work in again without any pain. Based on some of what I've read online and talking to my brother, I believe I could finish a half marathon at my current level. I've done a few 10 mile runs without any taper and tho

I've talked before about how I don't usually like New Years and I think part of that is the bad rap that New Year's resolutions get. Having goals and things you want to change is essential, but New Year's resolutions come off almost as a recurring joke. For the past couple days, I've been thinking a lot about this subject since it's right around the corner and trying to put my finger on why it is that I don't like resolutions for the New Year. Granted, I am positive that t

This post has taken me a bit longer to produce than I expected due in part to some holiday traveling, but primarily due to a shift in my focus. Originally, I had been thinking about making this list about stuff that you might forget for a race, but I realized that everyone's routines and gear lists are going to be different so I decided instead to look more at some things to think about when you're going to do a race, particularly in the often dreary weather of winter. Peop

Today was one of those days that it was a serious mental battle as to whether or not I would get up and run. Between not getting as much sleep as I normally do and catching sight of the temperature approaching freezing, I was not too keen on going out for what I had planned to be a 5 or 6 mile day. The impending precipitation in the forecast was another mitigating factor affecting my decision making process. I finally did get out of bed and was still grumbling around decid

At some point or another, the familiar environment of traditional school learning falls away from your life. I imagine it can range to almost any age or level of schooling, but I would posit that it happens to basically everyone. For me, it happened when I graduated from college and was no longer in an environment directed towards learning, but for some it gets more complicated. This is an idea that I've been working on mentally since before I left college and I was spurre

I've been looking forward to today for pretty much two weeks now. Today is the day I got back to running after giving my hamstring some time to heal up and it went about as well as I could have hoped. I got a nice 3 miler in this morning as the sun was coming up and was almost entirely pain free, which is more than I can say for any other run that I've done in over a month, so it certainly feels good to start getting back into some run training. To try and avoid further iss

There's a point in a good workout that is undeniably awesome; maybe half to three-quarters of the way through at one of the more intense parts. I call it the sweet spot. I used to get it mainly in leg press lifts and deadlifts where you just got some heavy weight and the only thing that can possibly exist in your mind is that lift - getting the weight from point a to point b. I've gotten to where I find it in running too if I'm doing a longer run, around 4-5 miles in, I ju

The beginning of the year used to be a somber time to me. For whatever reason, it would be a more reflective and sometimes regretful period. As this year begins to come to a close though, I am getting really amped up for 2015. This New Year, I have some very concrete and ambitious fitness goals, but I also feel that they are realistic and will be fulfilling. I was doing a little research earlier today and I found that Atlanta has a half marathon and 5k on Thanksgiving. I

I used to be a full-on night owl. I preferred staying up until 4:00-5:00am to get things done rather than get up at 5:00 or 6:00am. Slowly, over the past couple of years, I've been ratcheting back the time that I aim to get up, mainly motivated by various work obligations and an interesting challenge in self-mastery. Sweet flares, bro. Lately, I've been trying to get up before 7:00am even when I don't have anything specific to do at that time and it's primarily because I au