Track and Field Blogs - Nate Jenkins

“The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain’t how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. That’s how the wining is done!”- Rocky Balboa in Rocky Balboa (Aka Rocky 6) I think we all have our ups and downs in sports as well as life. I think running… more »

Today I had a hill climb workout. I had scheduled a 6 mile climb on Gold Camp Road on the west side of Colorado Springs. Starting at 6600 feet and finishing at almost exactly 8000 feet. I planned to park at a scenic view turn off 2 miles up the hill, jog down past the start and do a 3 mile warm up. Then do my climb and finish with a 4 mile cool down back down the hill to my parked truck. Now I knew it was supposed to snow today but I was figuring it would be a… more »

Over the last few days I have completed my first few workouts at Altitude. My first was five repeats of a flat loop that I hadn’t measured the distance of but was guessing was a bit short of 1k. It turned out to be between 905m and 970m depending on which map I looked at. I did the reps in just over 2:45 with just under 2 mins jog rest after each one. It actually only felt a little different then sea level. I had no idea how fast I was going and I did notice little differences like when… more »

As many of you know I moved to Colorado Springs, CO from Lowell, MA last week. This is my first time going to altitude and a big change for me and my training so I figure I’ll do a few blogs over the next few weeks on what its like. In this first entry I’ll talk about the move and my first few days up here. After indoor nationals on Saturday I had a going away party on Sunday which was kind of a bust because we got a foot of snow or so. Then I spent most of Monday… more »

On Saturday night I ran the USATF indoor championships 3000m. I ran horribly. I finished DFL (dead you can figure it out last) in 8:17 my slowest time this winter. So you might expect that since I ran so badly at the national championships, missing my A goal for the race by just over a second per lap my indoor season must be a failure, I must be crushed. I have received a number of emails and facebook messages and comments on my blogs of condolence and advice on how to get better. What I need to do to get… more »

I’ll be running my first track national championships this weekend. I’m very excited about it. I am not the quickest guy on the planet, my fastest 400m ever is 58.8, now that was in college and I have been able to drop my 200m speed over the four years since then from a pedestrian 28.8 to a startlingly mediocre 27.2. Those are of course hand times, in spikes, with a flying start. I’m hoping for a big PR this weekend. I really like the Reggie Lewis track. I have raced there dozens of times from HS through college and right… more »

So I’m sitting at home doing what I normally do which is tour the running websites. I watched the NYC video’s on the American press conference here on flotrack. Now to be totally honest I am a pretty cocky guy. I think its part of getting good you have to believe you can do it or it will never happen. But anyway they had a press conference for the Americans and I was bothered that two of the athletes they highlighted were guys who finished behind me at the trials and who had slower PB in the marathon then me.… more »

Cell phone alarm goes off 4:45AM. Very tired. Back is a little off from the springs in the hotel fold out couch. My roommate, top masters runner and all around nice guy Paul Aufdemberge heads out for a quick shakeout, I have decided to forgo the normal AM wake up 15 minute jog in favor of an hour later wake up call, anytime the alarm goes at 3:45 I find myself unhappy, and a little breakfast a power bar and two pop tarts from the gas station up the road from the hotel. I do AIS stretching while Paul jogs… more »

The Umass Lowell xc guys assure me that a Hammer fest refers specifically to a run or workout where a group hammers on each other and that it is only a one run event as such I can not call a twelve day cycle of training a hammer fest. I am pretty pissed about this but they are better with that sort of stuff then me. Like knowing what a Salty Pirate is ect.. So I will defer to them on this and call my 12 day killer cycle a Festival of Hammers instead. It was that or a Foss… more »

I am in most aspects of life a patient person and in most aspects very persistent, I think my family would say stubborn but I'm being positive. But in running I tend to struggle with patients, both in the short term in terms of racing and long term, in waiting for improvement and success. I do better in running with persistence. Both are absolutely important to running success, but what are they and how can we use them. Patients the ability to wait with a calm feeling for something you want desperately, thats not the websters definition but its how… more »

The question of whether to join a team or to go it alone is probably the most fundamental question that the post collegiate runner faces. It is a question that has many facets and to which the correct answer depends largely on the specific situation of the athlete and the athlete him or herself. For me this question has been rolling around in my head for a bit. When I came out of college the choice was pretty easy to make. Frankly there were no teams in New England that was developing guys to a national level, except what was… more »

It has long been said that state cross country championships are won in the summer and it’s as true now as it was 30 years ago. In high school I was lucky enough to be a part of two state champion cross country teams and honestly we didn’t train any smarter or harder then the other schools in our state and I very much doubt that we had more talent then the other schools just because we had less then 370 kids in our entire high school. What we did do was meet up every night at 6pm in back… more »

This past week was the 26th week of this year of 2008 we are living in. The half way point! Scary, think back to all those things you wanted to do this year, have you done half of them yet? Well get too it! But I digress, the reason for this is that it seems like a good time to assess how things are going and to tie it together and get a little perspective on all this running I do. First the races, why? Well that’s what all the running is for to race well so it’s the most… more »