Keeping an Even Keel | Riding the Waves of Success and Disappointment
Over two consecutive weekends in February, I won two races. It’s been a while since I experienced back-to-back success like that. The successes I had over the previous four years were fewer and farther apart. And even now,...
WHAT I THINK ABOUT WHEN I THINK ABOUT FOOD | A COLUMN BY DAVID MCNEILL
At the risk of being condescending, and calling all runners control freaks, my experience is that habitual runners (from the hobby joggers to the Olympic medalists) share qualities of being perfectionist, pedantic, meticulous, and non-compromising....
Two weeks ago, I got sick. Debilitatingly and uncomfortably sick. I don't know what it was, but I couldn't eat or get out of bed for four days. On the fourth day, I did get out of bed though. I had a race scheduled. Never mind having not run...
Don’t Skimp on the Hills | A Runner’s Tribe Column by David McNeill
When searching for company for my day-to-day runs during the week, often one of the barriers between running with someone and running alone is the choice of location. Most of the time, I don’t mind driving to...
The modern technological age - first the Internet, and more recently, the advent of social media - has made everyone an expert at just about anything imaginable. Us runners, or at least the obsessive-compulsive variety, are a particularly curious breed of expertise-seekers. We want to know what, when, and...
When I first ventured to the US back in 2007 to take up an athletic scholarship, there were a number of cultural peculiarities foreign to this skinny little runner from Melbourne. The first was the prominence of tattoos. Everyone had them - all my teammates, and all the kids...
A column by David McNeill
Too often in my career, I have walked off the track querying my performances; wondering why I ran so poorly when training pointed to something better…or wondering how on earth I ran as fast as I did when preparations had been poor. The latter scenario...
Teamwork and Social Capital: A Column By David McNeill
Originally Published 8/11/2016 Runner's Tribe
As I sometimes do on solo runs when motivation is lacking, I plug in my headphones as I head out the door, and listen to a podcast. Last week, I listened to an illuminating discussion about the...
A quick warning to those who are about to read (or think they want to read): this is a long and boring account of the lessons I’ve learnt in running over the past six months. I apologize if you were looking for some entertaining stories, but if you don’t...
David McNeill took a big step in securing his selection for Rio 2016 by running a 10,000m qualifying time at the Payton Jordan Invite in May 2015 with a time of 27:45.01. Later that year he confirmed his selection by winning the Zatopek:10 (Australian National 10km Championship) in December....
