Thank you to the Eau Claire Marathon and Visit Eau Claire for collaborating on this event and sponsoring this blog post. I ran my first race of the year–the Eau Claire Half Marathon, and it was a good rust-buster for the start of the racing season! This was the first time running a race as part of the Eau Claire Marathon weekend, and it was truly the ‘biggest small town race in the US.’ It was the perfect size, a lot of people out cheering on the course, a scenic course, and free race photos! Kristy, my sister, also ran the half, so we had a lot of fun hanging out, sharing some miles together ..read more

Have you considered starting an online coaching business for runners but not sure where to start? Well, after my nine years of experience coaching runners virtually, I thought I would share some insights on things I’ve learned during this time in hopes it might help someone else who is interested in getting into this line of work. I’ve been fortunate to have developed a successful coaching business [PR (Personalized Running) Coaching] during these last nine years, and I’ve had the privilege of working with hundreds of athletes all over the world one-on-one and other runners who have purchased ..read more

It has been almost a month since we got back from our trip to Kauai, Hawaii but with the closing of our house and then moving into it, March was a bit of a whirlwind month (in a good way). But now we are settled in our house and we’ve got our routine down, I have the time to share details of our trip to Hawaii for my 40th birthday. swimsuit top | swimsuit bottom I had an amazing trip to Kauai with Craig and my sister, Kristy, and her husband, Nick. The four of us get along so well and truly enjoy each other’s company. Craig and I arrived on Kauai a couple of days before Kristy and Nick got the ..read more

I can’t believe it finally happened! We bought a house in Minnesota! We moved to Minnesota from Alaska last July and finally now in March we closed on our house. It was a long process, but I am so happy to finally be in a place of our own! We got back from Hawaii on a Thursday afternoon and then closed on the house the next morning, so it was a whirlwind time, but also such an exciting time. We started moving things in right away and spent about five days getting things set up before we slept at the new house. We are slowly getting furniture added, pictures on the walls, and decor throughout ..read more

Gah! How am I 40?! And how I have I been blogging so long that I also documented my 30th birthday on here as well. My birthday was almost a week ago–March 3rd to be exact, but I was too busy celebrating in Hawaii to compose this blog post until our flight home last night and into today. It was truly the best birthday ever. I feel like I’ve had a lot of “bad” birthdays over the years–really just lonely ones: one in particular where I was snowed in my apartment and couldn’t celebrate with others, a couple in college where no one hardly knew it was my birthday, and others that were just ‘meh.’ S ..read more

It has been a long time coming, but I have finally created my own training plans. I have wanted to do this for several years and finally had the time to do it! I poured a lot of time and energy into these because I wanted to make sure they would help you reach a new level of fitness, set a new PR, or challenge yourself as a runner in a new way. I currently have 4 training plans available: Return to Running Plan – $32: This plan starts gradually with run/walks for those who are wanting to get back into running after an extended break. Base Building Plan – $49: Not race-specific, but this plan ..read more

This blog post has sat in my drafts folder for several months already. I guess I kept waiting for things to get better and instead write a more uplifting post, but that has not happened yet. I did not expect that I would struggle so much with this move. You may remember how excited I was to move out of Alaska to Minnesota when we announced our move back in June. I thought it would be a seamless transition and if anyone would struggle it would be Craig. (Ironically, he’s been fine through this all.) We are now six months into being in Minnesota, and I still struggle every day. I miss my friends ..read more

I’ve had the privilege of being on a handful of different podcasts over this past year. I wanted one place where all of the links were, and I could send people or reference, so here they are: a list of all of the different podcasts I’ve been on with links to them on the Apple Podcast app. And if I have the opportunity to be on any future podcasts, I will update this page, so all of the links are in one place. RunChats with @RonRunsNYC January 2021 – I share how I got into running, training during the winters in Alaska, and winning the RunFest marathon. December 2021 – Recap of CIM (California ..read more

2022 turned out to be a pretty decent year for running! Not my best, but I did set 4 new PRs, 3 first places at races, I raced in 3 different states, lived in 2 different states, and did 1 trail run. I didn’t run nearly as many miles as I have in the past. This year I hit 2602 total miles, compared to last year when I ran 3095 miles. But other than that, I had a lot of good things this year brought. I will say overall this year was rough in our move from Alaska to Minnesota. A lot of huge changes that are never easy, which I’m sure affected my running. A look at my running stats from 2021: To ..read more

There is something truly magical about the carb load! This was my second time doing a true carb load, and I am a full believer in how well it works. I didn’t hit the wall during the California International Marathon (CIM), I felt strong the entire way, and I was even able to pick up the pace during the last few miles of the race–something I NEVER could do in my other marathons. Now, truth be told, there are other things you must do to ensure you avoid hitting the wall during the marathon, specifically: not starting out too fast and getting sufficient calories in during the race. But when you ..read more