Someone runs a 24:59 5K and says, "I know it's not that fast." Hang on a minute. Not fast compared to who? The guy at your running club doing 17 minutes? Someone who ran cross-country in college? Because if that's your standard, most of us will never be fast. In one analysis of 2.2 million US 5K results, fewer than 2% of finishes were under 20 minutes. The middle finish time was around 36 minutes. So no, a 25-minute 5K isn't elite. But it's hardly something to be embarrassed about either. I see runners do this to themselves all the time. Someone spends six months trying to break 30. Finally runs 29:30 and they're over the moon. Then they start following a few faster runners online. Suddenly 29:30 doesn't seem good anymore. Now they need sub-25. Then sub-20. I'm all for chasing faster times. That's part of the fun. But it's a shame when runners stop enjoying times they worked so hard for. And age matters too. A 25-minute 5K at 65 isn't the same thing as running it at 25. What 5K time would you actually call FAST?

Your longest marathon training run might be 20 miles. Race day is 26.2. What about those last SIX miles? Doing the full distance in training can wipe you out, though. How far was your longest training run before your FIRST marathon?

Drop what you ate before your last long run and how long before running you ate it. I'll tell you what to watch out for if you're having stomach trouble or running out of energy.

Day 47 of a running streak. Legs are wrecked. All you want is a day off. But going back to day ONE? Harder than it should be. Do you rest, or drag yourself through one lousy mile?

Road runners, what's stopping you from trying trails? The hills? Getting lost? Eating dirt? I run trails a lot. Ask me anything, even if it's just where to start.

Someone runs a 12-minute mile and gets told they're basically walking. That drives me nuts. At that pace, a 5K takes about 37 minutes. Maybe that sounds slow to some runners. But if your first 5K took 45 or 50 minutes, it's a big step forward. And some people have been running 12-minute miles for years. They're not beginners. They're not pretending to run. That's just their pace. You can walk fast or run slow. The number on your watch doesn't decide which one you're doing. If you run 11, 12, 13, or 14-minute miles, how long have you been running? Has anyone ever told you that you were too slow to count as a runner?