Amby Burfoot

1 week ago | marathonhandbook.com | Amby Burfoot

Jim Walmsley, winner of last year’s Western States 100 as well as three previous WS 100s, has disappeared from this year’s list of entrants. This presumably means that he is injured, and will not start the famous ultramarathon trail race through California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. The 47th official running of the WS 100 is scheduled for 5:00 a.m. Pacific time on Saturday, June 28.

1 month ago | marathonhandbook.com | Amby Burfoot

On Saturday evening in Boston, Marathon Handbook hosted a “Mile Zero” party in Boston. It brought together about 100 MH friends and a handful of elite guests who ran the marathon on Monday. The guests included age-group marathon legends Jeannie Rice and Gene Dykes; famed marathon physiologist Andy Jones (and his marathon running wife, Emma); and Louise Burke, widely regarded as the world’s top endurance nutritionist.

1 month ago | marathonhandbook.com | Amby Burfoot

Every runner I know feels the same about workouts and training theories—there are too many of them. How are you supposed to decide which one to follow? You could do LSD (Long Slow Distance) or HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). Damn all those confusing acronyms. You could adopt Swedish fartlek or follow the Dutch system of Klaas Lok. He proposes something he calls the Easy Interval Method (EIM). You could run longer in Zone 2, or do double thresholds.

1 month ago | marathonhandbook.com | Amby Burfoot

I wish I knew something about online sports betting. I don’t. But someone could clear a nice chunk of cash on the upcoming Nike Breaking4 project.  On June 26 in Paris, Nike runner Faith Kipyegon will attempt to break 4:00 minutes in the mile for an exhibition 1-mile race sponsored by Nike. The company is hoping to build on the concept it launched in 2017 when Eliud Kipchoge ran the Breaking2 marathon in 2:00:25. Two years later, in a similar event sponsored by another company, Kipchoge ran 1:59:40.

1 month ago | marathonhandbook.com | Amby Burfoot

The Boston Marathon has changed dramatically in the last 30 to 40 years, but some things have remained the same–and that’s a good thing. Let’s call it tradition. The field is much bigger, the start time has moved from noon to mid-morning, there are far more female runners, footwear and fueling have made massive advances, and the digital revolution is everywhere present. On the other hand, the start, the finish, and the course remain essentially as they have been since 1897.