Brian Rock 
Feature photo courtesy of erp3d on reddit Recently, I did two in depth analyses of data related to the six star finishers. I published the last one last week – in the lead up to Boston – and I thought it would be interesting to do a quick follow up to see what changed with … Read more
Yesterday was a huge day in Boston. Not only did the elites lay down some blazing fast times – Sharon Lokedi and the top three women all broke the previous course record, while John Korir now holds the third fastest time in Boston history and Conner Mantz narrowly missed becoming the fastest American ever – … Read more
It’s been a long time coming, and now it’s here and gone: race week. When I ran Chicago in October, I had hoped to notch a BQ – in the low 3:00’s, with sub-3:00 as a stretch goal. If I did well, I was considering skipping a spring marathon and focusing more on a half … Read more
Feature image by Julian Mason on Flickr. CC BY 2.0. A few weeks ago, I published an analysis of data that I collected from the Abbott World Marathon Majors Six Star Finisher Hall of Fame. It provided some insight into who the Six Star Finishers were – and the path they took to collect all … Read more
Last weekend was my main race of the spring – the Jersey City Marathon. It’s the third time that I’ve run this race. The first year, things didn’t go so well. They started off ok, but things completely unraveled in the end – capped off with a minor hamstring pull. The second year, things went … Read more
If you want to start a heated discussion with a group of runners, ask them how they feel about downhill races. To some, they’re tantamount to cheating — an easy way to boost your time by 5 or 10 minutes (or more), claim a new PR, and qualify for Boston. To others, they’re a perfectly … Read more
One week to go. Time to taper down – and second guess myself all week as to whether or not I’m actually ready for this race. Early on, my training was going ok. I didn’t bounce back from Fred Lebow quite as quickly as I would have liked, and as a result I don’t think … Read more
Lately, the hullabaloo on r/Garmin has been focused on Garmin Connect+. People are up in arms about the new subscription plan and what it (possibly) portends for the future of Garmin’s products. I’m subscribed to the free trial, I shared some initial thoughts here, and I’ll be back with a full review at the end … Read more
For the past few months, I’ve been tracking the results of marathon finishers around the world in an attempt to project the cutoff time for the 2026 Boston Marathon. I put together a live tracker, and I published an early analysis in December and a follow-up in January. The emerging picture suggested that the new qualifying times reduced the … Read more
At the end of March, Garmin released a new subscription service – Garmin Connect+. Here’s what Garmin has to say about the plan: Garmin Connect+ will elevate a customer’s health and fitness knowledge with personalized Active Intelligence insights powered by AI, expert training guidance, exclusive badge challenges, expanded LiveTrack features and more. To say this … Read more