It’s hard for me to award this dude the Mediocre Athlete of the Week since he was at the top of the pack for a big city marathon and is therefore a pretty bad-ass runner, but he lost the race when he inexplicably took a wrong turn 200 meters from the finish line and headed in the wrong direction. Thus, instead of being a mediocre athlete, he’s simply a mediocre direction follower. I guess that’s one of the drawbacks of being in the front — you don’t have anyone to follow. Sorry, dude. Better luck next...

Sunday was the Las Vegas Rock ‘n Roll Marathon, a race I signed up to do but unfortunately could not participate in because of my increasingly annoying Achilles injury. The last time I updated you on the status of my feet, it was the left foot giving me grief while the right Achilles was intermittently tight. Now my left foot appears to have healed but the right Achilles has gotten worse. It’s now instantly tight and stiff when I start running and is stiff in the morning when I wake up and hop out of bed (morningtendon?). At first I thought I could still manage to do the half marathon, but...

Every month or so I head to Colorado for work. This time around, I brought Jason with me so we could attend my boss’s housewarming party (I use the word “house” loosely, as 12,000 sq. ft is less of a “house” and more of a “Xanadu”). We spent the 4th of July hiking and trail running in Colorado Springs. That may sound impressive at first until I tell you that I both fell on my ass in true Mediocre Athlete fashion and we got horribly lost and ended up going twice as far as intended. Never go hiking with us unless you want people to stumble across your...

Last week I spent four nights in New York City, came home for a day, went to Penticton over Memorial Day weekend to train, came home for less than 24 hours, and flew to Denver (where I am right now) for work. Despite all of the jet setting, I managed to get in a decent training weekend. I have tasted Ironman Canada, and it tastes hilly and challenging. Jas and I drove to his parents’ house to carpool up to Penticton. On the way we stopped at REI so I could pick up some leg warmers because I realized it’d likely be ass cold over the weekend and I had forgotten to pack tights. We arrived at...

This coming Sunday I’m running a dinky little marathon in Goodyear, Arizona. It’s the IMS Marathon, and this is only the second year of the race (last year they scheduled it the same day as the Phoenix Rock ‘n Roll, so turnout was ridiculously low). I can think of no better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than to drag my stubby legs 26.2 miles through the arid southwestern heat. The marathon will be my second ever — I ran the Vancouver Marathon a few years ago with a scant amount of training and no knowledge of proper race day nutrition/hydration. I finished in about...