The Ticker
The Times reported this week that more than half of the women listed on the 2009 University of South Florida Cross Country roster didn't know they were on the team. Find out why women's running is a "bonanza" for college A.D.'s looking to skirt Title IX… This headline says it all: "Canadian bureaucracy ends autistic track star's senior season"… Pasta party!… Ian Sharman ran 2:44 at the Boston Marathon earlier this month. Considering that earlier this year Sharman ran the fastest 100-miler ever on US soil, that might not seem like an accomplishment worth touting, but it brings his "marathon minute game" number to two. Sharman only needs to run 2:34 and 2:41 to have finished a marathon in every minute from 2:32 to 3:12… Neil Weygandt, of Upper Darby, Pa., is one of this week's Sports Illustrated Faces in the Crowd. The 64-year-old ran 5:52:14 in his 45th straight Boston Marathon–the longest streak of marathons run in one city… With all due respect to the victim, was the attacker really naked if he was wearing a gorilla mask?…
The Video
The Tweet @higdonmarathon: All marathons are 26 miles 385 yards. Anything longer and the race is an ultramarathon. Anything less and the course was mismeasured.
The Quote
"Somebody at work asked me when I was getting a handicap permit. I said, 'I'm not broken. I'm pregnant.'"
–Leslie Quinalty, who will run the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon this Sunday at seven months pregnant.
Meet Runner's World This Weekend!
Runner's World is at the races this weekend. Stop by and see us at either the Lehigh Valley Half-Marathon or Big Sur Marathon:
Lehigh Valley Half-Marathon Expo
With: Mark Remy, Amby Burfoot, Budd Coates, Sarah Lorge Butler, and Charlie Butler. More details here
Big Sur Marathon Expo
Friday: Noon – 6 p.m.
Saturday: 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Monterey Conference Center in Historic Downtown Monterey, One Portola Plaza, Monterey, CA 93940
Runner's World Challenge Shakeout Run, presented by Puma
Join Bart Yasso and RW editors for an easy, 2-to-3-mile jog.
Saturday: 7:30 A.M.
Location: Hyatt Regency Monterey (Fire pit / Spyglass Promenade Gazebo area)
Seminar: How to Run Your Best Big Sur Ever
Saturday: 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.
Location: Big Sur Marathon Expo
With: RW Editor-in-Chief David Willey, Tish Hamilton, and Warren Greene
Do you have a link, photo, or hot tip worthy of Runner's Digest? E-mail it to us: rwwebedit@rodale.com
Author: The Dragonfly Swimmer Published: April 28th, 2011
From left: The Runner's Rule Book, Mark Remy, The Runner's Field Manual
Calling all Lehigh Valley (Pa.) area runners!
If you're running this weekend's Lehigh Valley Half-Marathon and 5-K — or, heck, if you just live nearby — come meet a few Runner's World staffers at the race expo this Saturday:
Author: The Dragonfly Swimmer Published: April 28th, 2011
A few days ago, a reader passed along a link to a brief online Q&A with a runner named Alex J. Taylor, of Somerville, Mass.
Alex is fast. He finished this year's Boston Marathon in 2:22:19, a PR.
That's not why the reader passed along the link, though. The reader passed along the link because she found some of the questions (obviously posed by a non-runner) amusing.
Questions such as, "How is Somerville as a jogging city?" And, "Why participate in such a grueling sport? Aren't there other sports that are just as fun but not as punishing?"
My favorite bit, however, came during Alex's response to the question, "How do you like the crowds drinking beer and passing out cups of water along the (Boston) racecourse?"…
The crowds along the Boston Marathon route are the best of any race I've ever been to. They're very supportive and they give a lot of support to local runners in particular. The running community is big in the greater Boston area, so I get to see a lot of familiar faces along the way of runners that aren't competing who come out to watch and cheer everyone on. My favorite person handing out food/water along the course was a little girl in Natick who insisted that her orange slices were getting lonely.
So this guy, clearly an experienced runner, shows up to run what is possibly the world's most prestigious marathon; takes off in a field of 27,000; follows an historic, landmark-filled course lined with hundreds of thousands of cheering spectators, including screaming college women; and crosses the finish line in a personal-best time, amid the spine-tingling roar that is Boylston Street. He does all of this over a period of hours, and his most persistent memory is…
A little girl in Natick who insisted that her orange slices were getting lonely.
That bit touched me, for two reasons:
1. It's adorable.
2. It says so much about the beauty of running in general, and marathon running in particular.
That thing, of course, is running's ability to clarify.
This is what many people, especially non-runners, just don't get about running: That if you do it long enough, and keep your mind open enough, it can bring certain seemingly trivial details into super-sharp focus. That it can make you notice things, and appreciate them — sometimes in much deeper ways than you ever expected to.
Every time it happens, at least to me, it gives me a little buzz. And makes me feel a little bit more alive. Little moments like the girl with the orange slices turn out to be not little at all. They're huge, and they always feel like gifts, from running to you.
Are there "other sports that are just as fun but not as punishing?" Maybe.
But maybe that's the wrong question.
Attention, Lehigh Valley (Pa.) Area Runners!
If you're running this weekend's Lehigh Valley Half-Marathon and 5-K — or, heck, if you just live nearby, come meet a few Runner's World staffers at the race expo this Saturday:
Author: The Dragonfly Swimmer Published: April 28th, 2011
A few days ago, a reader passed along a link to a brief online Q&A with a runner named Alex J. Taylor, of Somerville, Mass.
Alex is fast. He finished this year's Boston Marathon in 2:22:19, a PR.
That's not why the reader passed along the link, though. The reader passed along the link because she found some of the questions (obviously posed by a non-runner) amusing.
Questions such as, "How is Somerville as a jogging city?" And, "Why participate in such a grueling sport? Aren't there other sports that are just as fun but not as punishing?"
My favorite bit, however, came during Alex's response to the question, "How do you like the crowds drinking beer and passing out cups of water along the (Boston) racecourse?"…
The crowds along the Boston Marathon route are the best of any race I've ever been to. They're very supportive and they give a lot of support to local runners in particular. The running community is big in the greater Boston area, so I get to see a lot of familiar faces along the way of runners that aren't competing who come out to watch and cheer everyone on. My favorite person handing out food/water along the course was a little girl in Natick who insisted that her orange slices were getting lonely.
So this guy, clearly an experienced runner, shows up to run what is possibly the world's most prestigious marathon; takes off in a field of 27,000; follows an historic, landmark-filled course lined with hundreds of thousands of cheering spectators, including screaming college women; and crosses the finish line in a personal-best time, amid the spine-tingling roar that is Boylston Street. He does all of this over a period of hours, and his most persistent memory is…
A little girl in Natick who insisted that her orange slices were getting lonely.
That bit touched me, for two reasons:
1. It's adorable.
2. It says so much about the beauty of running in general, and marathon running in particular.
That thing, of course, is running's ability to clarify.
This is what many people, especially non-runners, just don't get about running: That if you do it long enough, and keep your mind open enough, it can bring certain seemingly trivial details into super-sharp focus. That it can make you notice things, and appreciate them — sometimes in much deeper ways than you ever expected to.
Every time it happens, at least to me, it gives me a little buzz. And makes me feel a little bit more alive. Little moments like the girl with the orange slices turn out to be not little at all. They're huge, and they always feel like gifts, from running to you.
Are there "other sports that are just as fun but not as punishing?" Maybe.
But maybe that's the wrong question.
Attention, Lehigh Valley (Pa.) Area Runners!
If you're running this weekend's Lehigh Valley Half-Marathon and 5-K — or, heck, if you just live nearby, come meet a few Runner's World staffers at the race expo this Saturday:
Author: The Dragonfly Swimmer Published: April 28th, 2011
A few days ago, a reader passed along a link to a brief online Q&A with a runner named Alex J. Taylor, of Somerville, Mass.
Alex is fast. He finished this year's Boston Marathon in 2:22:19, a PR.
That's not why the reader passed along the link, though. The reader passed along the link because she found some of the questions (obviously posed by a non-runner) amusing.
Questions such as, "How is Somerville as a jogging city?" And, "Why participate in such a grueling sport? Aren't there other sports that are just as fun but not as punishing?"
My favorite bit, however, came during Alex's response to the question, "How do you like the crowds drinking beer and passing out cups of water along the (Boston) racecourse?"…
The crowds along the Boston Marathon route are the best of any race I've ever been to. They're very supportive and they give a lot of support to local runners in particular. The running community is big in the greater Boston area, so I get to see a lot of familiar faces along the way of runners that aren't competing who come out to watch and cheer everyone on. My favorite person handing out food/water along the course was a little girl in Natick who insisted that her orange slices were getting lonely.
So this guy, clearly an experienced runner, shows up to run what is possibly the world's most prestigious marathon; takes off in a field of 27,000; follows an historic, landmark-filled course lined with hundreds of thousands of cheering spectators, including screaming college women; and crosses the finish line in a personal-best time, amid the spine-tingling roar that is Boylston Street. He does all of this over a period of hours, and his most persistent memory is…
A little girl in Natick who insisted that her orange slices were getting lonely.
That bit touched me, for two reasons:
1. It's adorable.
2. It says so much about the beauty of running in general, and marathon running in particular.
That thing, of course, is running's ability to clarify.
This is what many people, especially non-runners, just don't get about running: That if you do it long enough, and keep your mind open enough, it can bring certain seemingly trivial details into super-sharp focus. That it can make you notice things, and appreciate them — sometimes in much deeper ways than you ever expected to.
Every time it happens, at least to me, it gives me a little buzz. And makes me feel a little bit more alive. Little moments like the girl with the orange slices turn out to be not little at all. They're huge, and they always feel like gifts, from running to you.
Are there "other sports that are just as fun but not as punishing?" Maybe.
But maybe that's the wrong question.
Attention, Lehigh Valley (Pa.) Area Runners!
If you're running this weekend's Lehigh Valley Half-Marathon and 5-K — or, heck, if you just live nearby, come meet a few Runner's World staffers at the race expo this Saturday:
Author: The Dragonfly Swimmer Published: April 27th, 2011
He never stood a chance.
If you happen to be a distance runner or a quadruped, there's an article that may interest you in the May 2011 issue of Outside magazine.
The article is titled "Fair Chase" and subtitled "On the plains of New Mexico, a band of elite marathoners tests a controversial theory of evolution: that humans can outrun the fastest animals on earth," and you can read it right here.
The framework for the article — let's pit some fast marathoners against a pronghorn antelope and see if they can't pursue the thing until it overheats and falls over — is a little gimmicky, but fun. And I won't give away the ending here.
The underlying idea is the theory that, as Outside explains, "our ancestors evolved into endurance athletes in order to hunt quadrupeds by running them to exhaustion." (This is called "persistence hunting.") Harvard's Daniel Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist, is among this theory's most visible proponents.
Well, with all due respect to Dr. Lieberman and his fellow experts: I think you're close, but not quite there.
My own theory is that our ancestors did indeed use running to hunt — not by running animals to exhaustion, but by cornering them in social situations and talking to them about running until they collapsed of boredom.
At which point the runners could surround the quadruped and devour it at their leisure, using the calories to fuel more long runs and speed workouts, which they could then describe at agonizing length to future quadrupeds, who would then collapse of boredom, etc.
You know. Circle of life.
A typical scenario might play out like this, at a gathering of our australopithecine ancestors, one of whom has buttonholed an obviously uncomfortable antelope by a crude, stone punch bowl:
* * *
Australopithecine ancestor: "Me been runner for long time. Me not training for anything right now. Maybe spring marathon. Whatever 'marathon' is. And 'spring.' You run? You have four leg. You probably run."
Antelope: [snorts]
Australopithecine ancestor: "Me bet you run fast. Me no run fast. Me more of jogger. Ha ha. But at least me out there. Me try to do many short run most time, then one long run some time. Also Yasso 800."
Antelope: [eyes dart nervously, looking for an out]
Australopithecine ancestor: "You barefoot runner? Me into barefoot running. Change life. Just seem more natural."
Antelope: [snorts, shudders]
Australopithecine ancestor: "You know where me like run? Savanna. Flat, pretty. Me feel like me can run forever on savanna. Me perspire, but that okay. You perspire? No? Ha. You look like you want perspire now. Anywaaaaaay… Me tell you about time me hurt leg?"
Antelope: [twitching, panting, scratching at ground]
Australopithecine ancestor: "Me try to run through hurt. No work. Hurt spread! Look, me show you where pain go…"
Antelope: [falls over, unconscious, bored out of its skull]
Australopithecine ancestor, to others: "Dinner ready!"
* * *
…Like I said, this is also just a theory. Maybe someday I'll test it. As soon as I finish that crude, stone punch bowl.
Attention, Lehigh Valley (Pa.) Area Runners!
If you're running this weekend's Lehigh Valley Half-Marathon and 5-K — or, heck, if you just live nearby, come meet a few Runner's World staffers at the race expo this Saturday:
Author: The Dragonfly Swimmer Published: April 26th, 2011
Photo via Wikipedia Commons
First, a big, fat disclaimer: I do not understand physics. I know that gravity keeps me from floating into space, thanks to the earth's rotation or something. I know there's something called "Planck's constant," even though I have no clue what it is (or who Planck was). I know about inertia, mostly from firsthand experience. And that's pretty much that.
Still, I find the Einstein's Pedometer app kind of fascinating.
A poetically brief description on the app's iTunes page lays it all out in two sentences, which for unexplained reasons are broken into three lines:
According to Einstein's theory of relativity, When you move faster, time slows.
This application is using GPS and Lorentz transformations, to calculate how much time you get.
So, add "Lorentz transformations" to the list of things I don't understand.
Among other things, Einstein's theory of special relativity says that as an object's velocity increases, time as experienced by the object will slow down when compared to another object traveling at a lower velocity. … While the greater the velocities involved, the greater the effect, the theory applies to all relative movement. Now there's an iPhone app that will let you know just how many extra nanoseconds you've gained by getting moving as opposed to sitting on your rear end.
To calculate just how much time you've gained by walking to the shops, the Einstein's Pedometer app uses the iPhone's GPS capabilities and the Lorentz transformation, which describes how two observers' varying measurements of space and time can be converted into each others frame of reference. A quick stroll round the neighborhood with Einstein's Pedometer yielded me an extra 0.00021440 nanoseconds than if I'd stayed at my desk doing something else, like working.
More motivation to head out for a run, if you needed one.
And hey, don't laugh: Over enough years, those fractions of nanoseconds can really add up. Maybe to a whole nanosecond!
Author: The Dragonfly Swimmer Published: April 25th, 2011
By Susan Rinkunas
Earlier today, Runner's World surpassed 200,000 fans on our Facebook page! To commemorate this milestone and to thank you for following us, we’ve got some giveaways and discounts, including the lowest prices ever on RW training plans and several RW books.
First, we're giving one free issue to the first 200 U.S. residents who sign up here! UPDATE: We've reached the maximum of 200 free issues.
And for the next 200,000 seconds (through 2 am ET on Thursday 4/28), we're also happy to offer:
Author: The Dragonfly Swimmer Published: April 25th, 2011
By Susan Rinkunas
Earlier today, Runner's World surpassed 200,000 fans on our Facebook page! To commemorate this milestone and to thank you for following us, we’ve got some giveaways and discounts, including the lowest prices ever on RW training plans and several RW books.
First, we're giving one free issue to the first 200 U.S. residents who sign up here! UPDATE: We've reached the maximum of 200 free issues.
And for the next 200,000 seconds (through 2 am ET on Thursday 4/28), we're also happy to offer:
Author: The Dragonfly Swimmer Published: April 25th, 2011
By Susan Rinkunas
Earlier today, Runner's World surpassed 200,000 fans on our Facebook page! To commemorate this milestone and to thank you for following us, we’ve got some giveaways and discounts, including the lowest prices ever on RW training plans and several RW books.
First, we're giving one free issue to the first 200 U.S. residents who sign up here! UPDATE: We've reached the maximum of 200 free issues.
And for the next 200,000 seconds (through 2 am ET on Thursday 4/28), we're also happy to offer:
