In the fall of last year, I ran a 2.57 marathon and recently improved to 2.49. This was a huge improvement over my four-hour marathons a little over a decade ago (I’m forty-two now, so I was in my late twenties then). Back then I didn’t take marathons seriously. My…

I’m an athlete. For some strange reason, I’m thinking of the movie The Fly. The metamorphosis has been that dramatic. I’m a runner. I’ve always enjoyed running but two years ago I started to run more. I started to run consistently. My consistency became an uncompromisable habit. …

Consistency. Consistency. Here’s my advice: if you start googling for how to run a marathon in under…, you’re failing already. You’re not a runner. Because you are looking for a magic recipe, instead of always being a runner. Always being a runner, in my view, is being consistent about running…

My 2.49 marathon is now behind me, a lovely chapter in my running journey book! I’m not hurting! That makes me proud. I remember my first couple of marathons more than a decade ago. They were just over four hours. I couldn’t lift my ass from my bed or chair…

That’s all I want to be… Maybe it’s my goal, not my dream. I was an unathletic kid, growing up in Soviet Moscow. I did swimming between the ages of six and nine, but that was about it. Already in the second grade — I was around eight years old…

I have bad habits too, of course, but these ones help maintain my physical and mental health: $50 worth of oats, almonds, and honey (I mean that I eat oats with almonds and honey) can sustain at least one-third of my nutrition for many weeks. …

I’m not a vegan or vegetarian. In the last couple of years, I have reduced my meat intake to a bare minimum but I’d still have a piece of steak every now and then or even a fried sausage. As I’m devouring my third bowl of kale now after my…

My wife, who is a tennis coach, has a running track session for her students once or twice a week. I joined her session a few days ago. These days I’m so arrogant about my running that I never run with anyone because usually it’s outside of my running routine…

Actually, I haven’t been “preparing” for a race. I haven’t even signed up yet. I’ve been running with perfect consistency for almost two years. My commitment to consistency helped me to run my first sub-three-hour (2.57) marathon in October 2021 and a 1.19 half marathon in February 2022. I’m proud…

A friend told me that breaking the 3-hour marathon mark can be underwhelming. It’s just a number, he said and once you get there, it’s possible to feel empty. Bullshit! Yesterday, at 41 years of age, I ran a 2.57.04 marathon in Southern California and it felt like an achievement…

The more I run the less I like the construct “sub-something”. My running routine has no goals attached to it. Running has become my life’s cornerstone habit, my passion. It can’t be defined by some tactical goal or past result. My results are the outcome — checkpoints — of my…

I could never imagine I’d write a post like this, because I’m not into sports drinks. On a hot summer day or after a very intense run, I might grab a Gatorade — at our house we usually have a box from Costco because my kids do sports, but I…

Today is my birthday and I couldn’t care less — this year, or any year. I’m only excited about my birthday insofar as it’s a reminder of how lucky I was to be born when I was born, where I was born — in Moscow in 1980, just in time…

The banging on my door was embarrassing. And they were laughing and speaking in Russian — Lesha and Sasha, my two close Russian friends at Cambridge. Surely they were waking up the entire wing of my college building campus. The hour was ungodly. 5 am. Embarrassing. I dragged myself out…

Most runners know about the 80/20 rule. This rule states that you should do 80% of your training at an easy pace and 20% of your training at a hard or fast pace. This rule works well for most people and it works especially well for people under 50 years…

I don’t remember exactly how it happened. I have glimpses, flashbacks, some posts on Facebook. We were at the beginning of the pandemic. Life had come to standstill. Kind of a standstill! We’re never “standing” still in our family. My kids play sports and my wife’s intensity, the ability to…

I’ve been so consumed by following the war in Ukraine that I got distracted on multiple fronts — work, sleep, attention to my family. But running has stayed my mental “refuge” (an unfortunate pun). …

Not directly, but the connection is unquestionable. You’ll never see from me a screenshot of my Medium earnings! In one of my earlier stories, I promised to never post like garbage about my Medium stats, reads, followers, earnings. And I’ll keep my word. But I do want to admit that…

A friend told me that breaking the 3-hour marathon mark can be underwhelming. It’s just a number, he said and once you get there, it’s possible to feel empty. Bullshit! Yesterday, at 41 years of age, I ran a 2.57.04 marathon in Southern California and it felt like an achievement…