Health and Fitness

Are You Tough Enough For Badwater?

(image courtesy rpmbold) The Northeast USA today “issued” an “excessive heat warning”. That can only mean one thing… everyone is complaining about how hot it is outside. Some people thrive on the heat and enjoy running in it. They might want to start prepping now for the ultimate race goal: Badwater. What’s a Badwater, you ask? It is a short 135 mile race through Death Valley. Think of it as a nice afternoon stroll… if your idea of a nice afternoon stroll is taking a walk in or around your oven! It is an easy course. As you can see…


The Singularity Is Coming, and It Says You Run too Slowly!

Runners have all sorts of ways to make themselves run faster. Personally, I like using my Garmin Forerunner, since nothing makes me feel slower than watching my snail’s pace tick off on my wrist. Then I convince myself the Garmin is judging me for being slow, and it makes me push harder. Others use landmarks, like trying to run harder to the nearest tree and then slowing down, etc. Now there’s a way to train harder that ups the geek ante to near-infinite levels. According to Runners World, engineers in Australia have invented “joggobot”, a flying drone that floats ahead…


Sugar, Salt, and Why We Love Junk Food

I love salt. A lot. My college friends still tease me about how I would salt my fries, then salt my ketchup for good measure. For the record, I don’t do that anymore, and not just because Sarah made me stop. We really do try to make an effort to eat “real food” (and yes, I recognize that the fried Oreos I had at the town carnival last night do not count), and this graphic shared by author Michael Pollan just further cemented that drive to eat better. I don’t know for certain that all of the claims are true,…


How Dangerous Is Football?

I played rugby for several years, both in college and post-college. Just about every person who heard I played rugby had the following comment: “Rugby? Isn’t that dangerous?” Yes, rugby is a rough sport, and I can’t deny that (especially with two screws in my knee from a rugby practice-related injury). But I always tell people that I feel rugby is safer than American Football, which has always struck me as a dangerous and chaotic sport. There’s been quite a bit of debate about concussions and football lately, and according to Forbes, even former football player Kurt Warner doesn’t want…


C9 by Champion Flip Top “Glommit” Review

It hasn’t been too cold yet this winter, but I am sure now that it is January the cooler temps will be coming. And like every year, I’ll have two issues. One, my hands get super cold when I run, but then they heat up in gloves, necessitating a gloves on/gloves off routine every half mile. Second, using a smartphone in the dead of winter is a huge pain. It’s a juggling routine to free my fingers from gloves to tap the screen, then cover them back up before it gets too cold. I could use special gloves with capacitive…


Join a Virtual Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving for Charity!

“Turkey trots” are a very popular Thanksgiving tradition. Usually, they’re organized events, with a large group of people and race volunteers, etc. But you don’t need to join a full race to run a Turkey Trot this Thanksgiving, just head right out your front door! Instead of just running your usual route, though, you can still make Thursday’s run special. The fine folks at Dailymile are spearheading the “Feed the Turkey” virtual run this Thursday to benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. All it takes is pledging $1, $5, or $10, and then heading out for your run! So this Thursday,…


C25K: Larry Is too Cool for School

Week of 6 of the  C25K program is in the books.  Only three more weeks to go.  Here’s how this week’s workouts looked: Larry: If you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed the lack of Tweets related to the C25K program this week.  No it wasn’t a Twitter failure. Judie: And if you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed the same lack of Tweets; that was not a Twitter failure, either. Larry: I was all set to follow this week’s plan until I ran until my old marathon training buddy at my neighborhood’s swimming pool over…


Add 10 calories, 3G Sugar, and 50 Mg Caffeine to Water and What Do You Get? TrimWater??

When I see products like TrimWater I wonder how any of it gets sold except through slick marketing. The company, the same one that makes TrimSpa diet products, used to market this through a now expired agreement with the TrimSpa diet folks, appears to have taken …. water … added flavoring and sweetener (10 calories per drink plus 3 G sugar) – and then marketed it as TrimWater. Since when is ADDING 10 calories, 50 mg of caffeine (12 oz Diet Pepsi has 35 mg for comparison), and 3 grams of sugar (no matter how small an amount) to water…