A race director is part event organizer, part manager, part orchestra leader and part head chef. In this episode I talk about some of the things a race director will need to think about to conduct a successful race, and I take a run through the Las Vegas Strip, where nothing is real, but at least everything is pretentious!

Over the past 80 episodes you and I have been running together every week, often in my town of Oxford, Massachusetts, yet I've never really described the places that I run through every day. In this episode of Intervals, my friend Joe goes for a run with us and tries to describe my neighborhood.

Dr. George Sheehan returned to the road at the age of 45 to become “fully functional‿ as a good animal. His book, “Running and Being‿ became a philosophical bible for runners around the world. In it, he taught us that this is our moment to live, and that we should not let life pass us by: we must run and be in order to know the total experience.

If you can incorporate hill training into your training program, you will gain a competitive edge with those whom you race against on the road. You will gain strength and be more comfortable and confident as you meet the challenge and reach the top of the hill.

Charity is one way to give back to the world around you. By finding a noble purpose to your running, you will have lived a good and honorable life that will inspire others to behave as you, and that, in the end may be your most charitable gift of all.

In this episode we look back on some of the possibly more amusing moments of this PodCast. In a year of sad and bad news, war and disasters: it’s important to remember that it was a year worth living, and hoping that the next one is an improvement over the last. Happy New Year!

I’m following a new marathon training plan for my Spring race. It’s no longer about just getting the miles in. It’s about learning what marathon pace feels like, and teaching my body to achieve that speed through moderate distances on a consistent basis.

It happens to the best of us, the Burnt Out Syndrome is a very real thing, and it’s important to listen to your body as well as your spirit to detect the symptoms…because if you push too hard or run a mile too far, you’re going to snap.

The tradition of gift giving during the holidays has become part of our culture, so in advent of the day we present an independent review of a few items that your fellow runners might hope to receive should some fat man in a gaudy suit shimmy down your chimney bearing even more gadgets and gizmos.

There are those who believe that middle of the pack runners should never be allowed to run a marathon. Twice a year, so called journalists and essayists embark on a controversial attempt to discredit our fellow runners, and ridicule our efforts on the road. In this episode, we dissect one such attempt from a writer “wanna-be‿ and give him a piece of his own medicine.