Resources

Day after day, I hear runners complain about their (seemingly) uncontrollable snacking habits. Some believe they are hopelessly, and helplessly, addicted to chocolate. Others believe eating between meals is sinful and fattening; snacking is just plain wrong. Some equate snacking to doing drugs. They bemoan they are addicted to sugar and can’t eat just one cookie. Snacking is all or nothing.
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First, the bad news. A sophisticated new model shows that if you start running at age 23 and put in less than two miles a day, there’s a 98 percent chance that your knees will fail by the age of 55. Now, the good news: that doesn’t actually happen in real life. In fact, as I and many others have repeatedly pointed out, the evidence suggests that running is neutral at worst, and possibly even helpful, for the long-term health of your knees. So the real question—and it’s an interesting one—is why runners’ knees don’t fail more than average.
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If you’ve ever run a marathon, half-marathon, or any other long race, you’ve undoubtedly had a hydration plan: a detailed assessment of what you intend to drink, when you intend to drink it, and how you intend to obtain it. But a paper in tomorrow’s issue of Science may cause you to rethink exactly how you do this, suggesting that to a larger degree than people have thought, you may be able to trust your sense of thirst to tell you when you are and aren’t getting enough fluids.
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While some runners have cast iron stomachs and few concerns about what and when they eat before they exercise, others live in fear of pre-exercise fuel contributing to undesired pit stops during their workouts. Be it stomach rumbling, a need to urinate or defecate, reflux, nausea, heartburn, or side stitch, how to prevent intestinal distress is a topic of interest to athletes with finnicky guts. Here are tips to help you fuel well before and during runs, races and workouts while reducing the risk of gastro-intestinal (GI) distress.
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As I write this column, the date is April 10th, 2020, three weeks into the coronavirus shut-down here in Boston. I continue to counsel clients from my virtual office. I am talking with runners and other athletes who are stuck at home, hating what they see when staring at themselves during Zoom meet-ups, and are spending too much time fighting with food (Do I eat? Don’t I eat? Am I hungry—or just bored?). They are feeling anxious and self-critical.
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Colorado Runner recently posted an article on running with your dog. As someone who has logged many miles, especially during the Great Colorado Sign Challenge as Team Pitsky, I had a few tips to add. Disclaimer: I’m just a runner that runs a lot of miles with his pups. I’m not a dog trainer.
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