Runner’s Life Newsletter
Highlights and stories from June 9 — June 22, 2024
Welcome to the Runner’s Life newsletter!
If you’ve missed previous Runner’s Life newsletters, you can find the archive here.
Below are the most recent editions of Amby Burfoot’s weekly newsletter titled Run Long, Run Healthy, where he publishes short summaries and links to the Internet’s most recent and scientific reviews of running information so you can learn how to be better at running.
Find Your Best Shoe With Science; Foam Rolling Beats Muscle Soreness; This Form Fix Stops Knee Pain
World’s Best Training Strategies; Don’t Ever Make This Mistake; Male Endurance Athletes & Low Sperm
Previous editions of Run Long, Run Healthy newsletters can be found here.
Featured Stories
Reframing the Walk of Shame by Patricia Vicary
In Haruki Murakami’s oft-quoted epic “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”, he ends the book by imagining the above wording on his eventual gravestone. It’s far from the only time Murakami writes about walking during a race — in fact, he seems downright obsessed. In one vignette, he’s running a full marathon when beset by leg cramps. Murakami notes that he’d never walked in a race before, but this time he had no option but to walk the last three miles. “Up till then I’d made it a point of pride that no matter how hard things might get, I never walked. A marathon is a running event, after all, not a walking event.”
Mr. Murakami, do you know what they call people who walk during a marathon?
Marathoners.
A marathon is most definitely a walking event. Says who? Says me, who has power walked every single step of four full marathons, 111 half marathons, and, well, you get the picture. I’m pretty sure my statement would be endorsed by the many thousands of competitors who have completed races utilizing some combination of running, race walking, power walking, and plain ol’ walk-walking. Many a marathoner has successfully crossed the finish line thanks to walking part of (or even — gasp! — the entire) 26.2 miles.
Read more here.
Finding the Value of Suffering on the Road to Boston by James Bellerjeau
I broke my ankle while training to run my first marathon. For two days, I told myself it was just a sprain until my wife forced me to get it looked at. A hairline fracture, a cast, and a stern admonition to stay off my feet.
That was the first time I did myself an injury while training. Oh, but it was far from the last. My journey to the starting line of the Boston Marathon would take me another six years.
The lessons I learned on the way have stayed with me ever since.
The reason people climb mountains and run marathons
Every year, people try to climb mountains and run marathons, alongside many other tough things. The mountain is there, scarcely changing in the face of heroic summit attempts. So too the marathons. No matter who comes and who goes, the marathons in Berlin, New York, and Tokyo carry on regardless.
Although the mountains and the events have a certain permanence, we humans do not. Whether the person succeeds or fails, the individual making the attempts is profoundly shaped by them.
Embracing challenges is one of the things that gives life meaning.
Thus, if you want your life to represent something more than the mindless pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain, you serve yourself well by seeking out challenges that require great effort.
Read more here.
Stories
Monday, June 10
Wednesday, June 12
Friday, June 14
Is There a Better System for Age Grading Marathon Results? by Brian Rock
Saturday, June 15
Monday, June 17
Thursday, June 20
Why Kyiv Is the Perfect City For Running by Anton Kutselyk
World’s Best Training Strategies; Don’t Ever Make This Mistake; Male Endurance Athletes & Low Sperm by Amby Burfoot
Finding the Value of Suffering on the Road to Boston by James Bellerjeau
Every Runner Needs Support by Stephen Hands
5 Fresh Running Workouts To Build Speed This Summer by David Liira, Kin.
Friday, June 21
Saturday, June 22
If you want to write for Runner’s Life, please see the submission requirements.
