Health and Fitness

Many of us grew up with some specific ideas about soda, coffee and caffeine in general: mainly that caffeine is a diuretic; it will therefore flush fluids from your system (make you urinate) and dehydrate you. Therefore, any of those types of drinks are bad choices for athletes at any point around a workout. But like so many other things we learned growing up, there is much about that ‘common knowledge’ that is incorrect and misleading. Let’s take a look at a few reasons why perhaps your next workout drink should have caffeine!

Tomorrow (June 5th) is the fifth annual National Running Day, but is the first one I have known about or participated in running. The purpose is to get people inspired to get out in run in as many different ways as there are runners. So whether it is a street run, pounding around a track, doing trails or relays or group runs or whatever, it is a great opportunity for distance runners to reaffirm our commitment and for new or occasional runners to get themselves started with a new training plan or goal. According to Running USA’s media director Ryan…

As I went out for a run last week, I was fresh off cashing in a gift card at my local Dick’s Sporting Goods (and loads of coupons), and I was flush with cool new stuff. It occurred to me that I was outfitted with HUNDREDS of dollars in gear – minimal shoes, high-tech socks, absurdly expensive Dri-Tech shorts, Dri-Tech compression shirt, SpiBelt, Garmin FR-10 GPS watch, and even a $25 high-tech running hat! The only thing that wasn’t exorbitant, was the $0.30 of band-aids to prevent ‘shirt front bleeds’, if you get my drift. Contrast this with what I…

I love to run. Yesterday coming out from food shopping with my wife, I saw a lady lose a cucumber and a few tomatoes out of her cart. I left the second cart (I have two teen boys) with my wife, chased down the produce, and then ran to catch up to the woman to return the items, and then jogged back to my wife. She was talking to some other folks who remarking on how nice I was – and she noted that while I AM nice, and that is why I did it, I like to run around…

Today marks an important – though totally artificial – milestone: the day Roger Bannister first officially broke the 4 minute mile. It is important because it removed a mental obstacle – and it is artificial because it is an arbitrary round number. That mark remains a goal for all milers and a remarkable achievement for any runner. The American Running Association is using the anniversary to push fitness and running among young people with their ‘R U A MILER’ campaign. The American Running Association is hoping that by pushing the mile in schools they can get more kids involved with…

One of the aftershocks of the Boston Marathon bombings this week is that racing is going to drastically change. Competitor.com, the organizers of the wildly popular (and often sold-out) “Rock n Roll” marathons has already said they’re working on updated security procedures, and runners at New York Road Runners are being told they can only bag check items in official clear plastic bags, with absolutely no backpacks or other bags placed inside the clear ones for security reasons. Organizing yourself for a race is going to become more than just training and showing up, but there is one item every…

I have posted several times about running as well as other fitness and health issues over the past year; I have also started a weekly ‘Monday Mile’ feature – and everyone has been amazing and supportive throughout, with loads of great discussions and tons of new stuff I have learned. At this point, I have no hesitation calling myself ‘a runner’ — something I would never have done before last fall. But when I look back to when the moment was that I turned the corner from being a ‘guy who jogged to control weight’ to ‘a runner’, it was Easter…

Over the past week or so, several folks at Gear Diary have started (or re-started) running as part of training for a 5K road race. We’ve been having a number of discussions, and Carly and I have been recalling running our first races. Since spring has officially started and even in the northeast we’re starting to see temperatures climb to near 50ºF during the day – which means weekend runners! So I thought it would make sense to take a bit and offer up some tips for your First 5K! Here we go: Get an App: Dan & Judie are…