Amy Reinink

I’ve been training for four weeks for the Virginia Beach Half-Marathon. The good news: My swimming feels fabulous, and I’m actually motivated to head to the pool for this often-dreaded form of cross-training. The bad news: I had a small setback running-wise when I re-twisted my gimpy ankle last week, so I don’t feel like [...]

It’s hard to go wrong with a core workout that includes what Olympic swimmer Dara Torres describes as her “favorite moves.” But this workout, from Shape magazine’s August issue, was even more of a killer than I expected. Just *try* to do the slow-ball rollout and corkscrew back-to-back without grunting, wheezing or otherwise embarrassing yourself. [...]

There’s no theme to unite these widely varied motivators, so I’ll just offer them smorgasboard-style, a strange buffet of inspiration powering me through my week—and through a 4,500-meter swim on Sunday (post-surgery distance record!): A new song: “Power” by Kanye West. Especially great for lifting, but also helpful at the end of a long run. [...]

Sunday: Off after Rockville Rotary Twilight 8K at 8:45 p.m. Saturday Monday: Swim in ocean at Dewey Beach—about 30 minutes straight in the morning, then for another 15 minutes in afternoon. Distance uncertain. Arms happily sore by the end of the day. Tuesday: 9.35 miles—a post-surgery distance PR, and the first long run I’ve completed [...]

Eating local blueberries and peaches fresh from the farm stand is perhaps the best and most delicious way to celebrate summer. It follows, then, that the biggest bummer is when the blueberries start fading out of season—when some berries in a given pint are tart and firm and tinged with pink, while others are just [...]

It’s a busy week thanks to a self-awarded long weekend, so I’ll offer this quick race report in list format. Here’s why I’d highly recommend you run the Rockville Rotary Twilight 8K next year: 1. With an 8:45 p.m. start, it’s probably the coolest temperatures you’ve run in since May. 2. With an 8:45 p.m. [...]

My Virginia Beach Half-Marathon training got an unexpected boost this week with an impromptu trip to Virginia Beach, where Steve had traveled for work, and where I decided to keep him company for a day. The bonus here was two-fold: First, I accidentally hadn’t taken an off-day in two weeks (oops). Driving down there Wednesday [...]

When I devised my training plan for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Virginia Beach Half Marathon over Labor Day weekend, I knew swimming would figure in hugely. I am a healthier, stronger person when I supplement my three running days per week with a couple swimming days, and I find that swimming translates well to running. [...]

The first week of training for a distance race is the easiest and the hardest. It’s the easiest because your motivation level is high, and because the mileage is not. It’s the hardest because it requires you to jar your brain and your body back into training mode. Depending on how long it’s been since [...]

When you’ve finished marathons, it’s easy to be cavalier about a 13.1-mile race. You remember those 20-milers during marathon training, and remember what it’s like to know that you can run a half-marathon on the fly, without any extra training or tapering. You know who doesn’t remember marathon training? My legs. My last marathon was [...]