derick@duratatraining.com

It’s that time of year! Colder weather, dark mornings and some dark late afternoons. Depending upon where you live, the reasons can be lack of daylight, cold temperatures or simply convenience that force you to take to the so-called ‘dreadmill’. But, listen here, it does not have to be boring and monotonous! With a little bit of creativity, some good music to keep you going and a focused workout, you’ll find that you may even prefer (*gasp!*) the treadmill for certain workouts. So, push aside your loathing of the old treadmill and listen up on how you can use it to help improve your running.

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If you’ve spent any time around the Durata Training coaches chatting about training and racing I really hope (for your sake) that you did not talk about doing “base training”. Because if you did you probably saw us pull out a soap box from the nearest stand of scrub brush and enthusiastically articulate all the reasons you were wasting your time. This time of year cyclists, runners and triathletes start talking about doing base work. How they need to go out and spend significant amounts of time at very low intensities. When pressed about why they need to do this the responses range from “I need to build my aerobic engine and build mitochondria on long easy rides” to “If you go too hard early in the season you may burst blood vessels in your eyes” (I really did hear this once).  […]

Will Rader is a 17 year old road, mountain, and cyclocross racer with the Metro Volkswagen Cycling Team while attaining the high marks at Highland Park High School. Fresh off a stellar finish to the 2009 road races season with strong performances at the Tour of Austin, the Texas State Road Race Championships, and the Piney Hills Classic as well as a huge solo win at the Downtown Denton Criterium, he’s marching towards Bend, OR for his first trip to CX nationals. If you’re heading up to Bend for the festivities December 11-13, be sure to say hi to Will and the Durata Training crew who will be hoping for sloppy conditions. Here’s Will’s account of the inaugural Mellow Classic-

“Starting on the very last row at the Mellow Johnny’s Classic wasn’t quite how I pictured having a great race in the big boy field. I new that it was gonna take some monster power to get around 50 other people to get a top 5 result like I really was hoping for, and from the start list thought was the goal i needed to shoot for. I had heard that they were calling people to the line for start placing based on the number plate and not just a free for all for the front row,  the latter of which I was hoping for. […]