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gerrymander 5k
October 19, 2017

Running & Politics Converge Again: A Gerrymandered 5K Course

That’s right folks, everything seeps into politics and politics seeps into everything. There’s a gerrymandered 5k course out in N.C., ya’ll.

runners vs hills
October 18, 2017

Do Hills Actually Pay the Bills?

Runners hate hills. Everyone hates bills. Can we figure out a way to make both work for each other? A resident idiot blogger tries math.

eminem galen rupp rap
October 11, 2017

LEAKED: Eminem nearly rapped about Rupp’s Chicago victory, too

Eminem, America’s hip hop dandy, has built a career on taking down his foes via verse. Today it was Trump, but it was nearly Rupp who drew his ire.

oscar pistorius movie trailer
October 10, 2017

Bad Oscar Pistorius film set to debut on Lifetime, nobody is happy

Not only does the upcoming Oscar Pistorius Lifetime movie look pretty bad, it’s also fairly insensitive to the victim’s family and is facing a lawsuit!

October 8, 2017

Could You Drink Chai Lattes for Marathon Fuel?

During this morning’s Chicago Marathon, and at most marathons, aid stations placed every 1 or 2 miles around the course often serve some sort of sports drink. While I’m pretty certain that Gatorade is the go-to this morning for race organizers (I checked the race website :P), I have to think about what might happen if instead of Gatorade, runners were given chai lattes. After all, Chicago is nicknamed Chi Town, and while I can’t say for sure if it was given this name for the city’s expert latte making skills, I can give you a pretty good estimate about what might happen if you used chai lattes for your race fuel.

Unfortunately, not all chai lattes are created equal, so to create a universal standard for this hypothetical, I’m going to go ahead and use the Starbucks version because they not only provide nutritional info online, but also because I’m currently using their wi-fi. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Likewise, we’ll go ahead and say that, like most sport drinks at marathons, our lattes will be in those quaint little 8 fluid ounce cups, conveniently placed on tables for you to grab if needed.

Calorically speaking, you might be surprised to hear that Gatorade (80 calories for 12 fl oz.) and chai lattes (120 calories for 8 fl oz.) are fairly similar. Likewise, the total carbohydrates in each drink at those same amounts are 22g, so there will be no shying away from necessary sugar intake. One could even argue that the black tea in the lattes will give you a supercharge as we all know caffeine to do (cc: Nick Symmonds).

Here’s the thing though: One of those tiny little cups of chai latte has a whopping 4g of protein in it, as milk makes up most of the drink. This wouldn’t be a big deal at first, and a runner could maybe even make it two or (I say hesitantly) three fueling stations—5 or 6 miles, let’s say—without having to worry that much. If one were to keep fueling up on chai lattes thereafter…well, I like to think it’d be pretty similar to a chocolate milk mile, only stretched out over the course of 26.2 miles.

But hey, I’m no expert on latte marathon fueling, so if you’re crazy enough to try this and it works out okay (not being hospitalized is a win in my book!), tweet us the result @CitiusMag! Likewise, be sure to keep an eye on our social media pages and CitiusMag.com if you’re just absolutely itching to get your fill on the Chicago Marathon.

best track and field portraits santa clara
October 6, 2017

Feast your eyes on the best male athlete portraits in track and field (Part IX)

Picture day is something to look forward to every year. These runners surely made the most out of their respective roster portraits. Part IX.

porta potty challenge
October 5, 2017

Your annual update on Teens: The Porta Potty Challenge

The more we study teens the less we seem to understand them. We’d like to turn your attention to the Porta Potty Challenge inflicting the country.

curb your enthusiasm leaked episode script
October 3, 2017

LEAKED: Abandoned ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Script – Larry Ducks Out Of A Charity 5K

In a leaked script to a future episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry tries to get out of participating in a charity 5K for rheumatoid arthritis patients.

September 23, 2017

Eliud Kipchoge E-mail Hacked! A Citius Mag Fake Inbox Special!

cross country headshots best of
September 20, 2017

Feast your eyes on the best male athlete portraits in track and field (Part VIII)

Picture day is something to look forward to every year. These runners surely made the most out of their respective roster portraits. Part VII.

September 13, 2017

Feast your eyes on the best male athlete portraits in track and field (Part VII)

Picture day is something to look forward to every year. These runners surely made the most out of their respective roster portraits. Part VII.

mo farah great north run 2017
September 7, 2017

Constructing the Great North Run’s cakewalk for Mo Farah

The Great North Run has added eight more runners for yet another meticulously constructed cakewalk for Sir Mo on British soil!

chavez tiki barber media mile
September 7, 2017

NYRR Announces Deepest Media Mile Field In History

NYRR has announced the fields for the 5th Avenue Media Mile and it may arguably the deepest in the history of running journos.

September 1, 2017

Pole Vault Dreams

I once dreamed I qualified for the pole vault at USAs or Worlds. Had no memory of why/how I qualified, but was abut to warm up anyway.

September 1, 2017

High School How-To: How to run a 5k cross country race

As great of a resource as Google is, the items that occupy the front page of most searches end up there through some combination of paid placement and/or shadowy computer algorithms. This means that any blowhard with a computer, an internet connection, and enough money can land on the front page. And I know you’re not going past the front page.

For people just looking for a quick “HOW TO” article or attempting to diagnose a weird rash, this can prove discouraging. Despite being firmly rooted in the Age of Information, the internet–our greatest informational resource–is full of misinformation. That, and our rapidly diminishing attention spans mean we’re spending less and less time doing our research. In 2017, most articles looking to inform a reader about anything would be better served to just eliminate all pictures and blocks of text and replace them with flashing GIFS. “IT’S POISON IVY,” flashing on the screen over and over is this generation’s ideal WebMD page.

With that being said, I’ve created a series of images and GIFS to help our high school readers get re-acquainted with cross country racing. If you’ve been feverishly googling “how to race a 5k” ever since practice started but have only found Runner’s World articles about “going slow and steady” or “running within yourself,” please know that–if you’re a high schooler–this is a stupid strategy. We at Citius Mag are here to teach you how to properly run a 5k cross country race in just two easy steps.

1. Attempt to PR in the mile in the first mile of most races

The ideal racing strategy in most high school races is to run your first mile far faster than your overall finishing pace. Do you fancy yourself a 17 minute 5k runner? Then please go out in 4:50. Are you faster than that? Maybe you’re a 16 minute 5k’er–then you should probably go out in 4:30.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at this chart below. These are the top-50 finishers in the 2016 Minnesota State Cross Country championship. The average finishing time was 16:40, but the average first mile was 5:05 or roughly 15:47 pace. Did anyone in that race run a 15:47? No. No they didn’t. But they went out in what I like to call “aspirational pace.” Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

Chart courtesy of Scott Olberding.

2. Die a slow death

Where do you go after you nearly PR in the mile during a cross country race? Downhill, baby. Most high school cross country races are races of attrition. You go out stupid fast, and then the person who dies the least wins.

Three examples.

a) Resident Citius Good Boy, Paul Snyder, ran his best high school 5k in a time of 15:22. He remembers his splits as 4:30-9:30-15:22. “No one passed me after the first 400m,” he said. And with good reason, because so far, he employed the two hard and fast rules of high school cross country racing: go out far too fast, and die slowly.

If he had maintained his 4:30 mile pace, he would have ran 13:58. Instead he ran 4:30, 5:00, 5:52 for the last 1.125 (that’s about a 5:12 mile). Those are some phenomenal positive splits.

b) The first time I broke 17 minutes in a high school 5k I ran 4:59-10:40-16:58. So, what is that? 4:59-5:41-6:18 for the last 1.125 (or 5:36). I remember I got like 12th place in that race. What could I have done different to run faster and probably place higher? You guessed it, ran a faster first mile, die less.

c) If you look at the chart above, you’ll see that the finishing times all trend this way. Go out fast, die, and then die less. The ones who hang on are the winners.

As stated before, the average first mile from our sample of Class A Minnesotans was 5:20. The average second mile was 5:47, average 3rd mile was 5:49.

***

Now, you might be thinking, “well that’s stupid. I should go out and race a little bit smarter than that.” Please don’t. In college and professional running, the person who goes out the fastest is generally considered the martyr. They’re going to go out fast, have an impressive lead for about a mile of the race, and then finish like 55th. High school is the last chance you’ll get to go out there, race like an idiot, and still be rewarded. If this isn’t the absolute epitome of your time in high school I don’t know what is. Cherish it.

 

oasis gallagher brother rivalry
August 31, 2017

Between Oasis’s Gallagher brothers, who’s the superior jogger?

For as long as there has been Oasis, there has been the obvious question, “Which Gallagher brother do you like better?” Well we have thoughts

cross country simulation video game
August 24, 2017

I let you simulate a HS XC race via Google Form; here’s what happened.

I made a Google Form so you could simulate a HS XC race. It was the worst sports video game of all time but 110 of you participated. Here’s what happened.

ncaa cross country nba coaches
August 23, 2017

NCAA Cross Country Coaches and Their NBA Equivalent

What once started as a bar conversation is now a blog post. Thinking of NCAA Cross Country coaches and their notable NBA equivalents.

August 22, 2017

How fast can LeBron James run a mile? Faster than you think

Citius Mag asks the question every runner has asked about other professional athletes since the beginning of time: how fast could LeBron James run a mile?

August 21, 2017

Your First Day of Cross Country

A look at how your first day of cross country practice will go. Beware this will be your life for the next four to five years as well.

August 20, 2017

“I’m back:” beleaguered blogging jogger takes aim at niche division victory

Beleaguered jogging blogger Paul Snyder is back, following a string of debilitating physical setbacks after the Debajo Dos Debacle.

August 10, 2017

We Have a World Championship Conspiracy Theory

Normally, the British seem to have their shit together. They strike me as a well-organized brood with a sharp sense of humor that can sometime not be understood but is nonetheless appreciated because of their silly, fun accents. However, like any warm-blooded, honest American knows, “the times they are a changin’” and the British have now become inept in their organization of championship events. Because of said ineptness we are left with conspiracy theories.

I love conspiracy theories. A friend of mine does this thing where he sends me an email with a subject of, for example, “Wilson Kipsang does 10 x 5K @ 8,000ft” and then the email body is a hyperlink and I click it and I get taken to some conspiracy theory about Phantom Time. I actually hate when he does this. I hate conspiracy theories.

This year’s World Championships is bloody full of ‘em, though. Between a pesky norovirus that ensured the world’s best stayed atop the podium and a poorly-placed cone, these British blokes sure know how to stir the pot. But there’s one theory that has yet to get the warranted media attention and it’s also not a theory; it’s a fact. Susan Krumins is Lynsey Sharp and Lynsey Sharp is Susan Kremins.

EXHIBIT A
Photo evidence

These are two photos of the same person. Let’s move on.

EXHIBIT B

Strangely similar birthdates according to Wikipedia

 

 

 

While normally an incredibly reliable source for correct information, I don’t “always” trust Wikipedia. This is a case where I respectfully refuse to accept the purported information on Wikipedia and rely on my own intuition to conclude Lynsey and Susan were both born on July 8th, 1986 because they are the same person.

EXHIBIT C

They have never raced one another

This could not be true. I do not have the appropriate manpower to figure out. It’s a safe assumption though. (Because they are the same person).

EXHIBIT D

Are you kidding me?

You equals me.

BUT, WHY?

This is the real meat and potatoes of this theory/reality. Why would Susan want to pose as a British 800-meter star? This is a very good question and I’m so glad I asked it. The answer is: I have no idea. Running is painful and having to do it for two people terrifies me greatly. Running for yourself is already mostly a terrible pastime, so having to do that for another is really just a bad idea. No human would want to do this. Which leads me to a new theory: Susan/Lynsey is a cyborg created by an inter-governmental agency with a serious desire for world track and field dominance.

Also Laura Muir looks like Arya Stark.

August 3, 2017

Most-Likely-Not-Happening World Championships Prop Bets!

Upon writing this, there are plenty of  actual scenarios you can gamble on for the 2017 World Championships. Now, that being said, I have no idea how to actually go about placing a bet. If someone came up to me and said, “Stephen, go place a bet on Usain Bolt to win the 100-meters.” I would immediately grab a meatball sub and watch The Sopranos while trying to discern how they bet on stuff. This would obviously end with me staining my shirt with marinara sauce and being wildly confused on the inner workings of gambling culture.

To combat this happening, I crafted some not-so-likely prop bets you can’t actually do anything with. Please enjoy responsibly.

Why did Andre De Grasse actually withdraw from the World Championships?

  • He was paid. A lot. Of Money. By someone close to Usain Bolt (2/1)
  • He heard the wifi was sketchy in the village and was not about to miss Game of Thrones (5/2)
  • It was the polite, Canadian thing to do (25/1)
  • Hamstring strain (300/1)

Mo Farah’s retirement from the track is mentioned more than 30 times throughout the competition.

  • Man, IDK. It seems like the British are down on him lately (3/1)
  • Some British commentator keeps saying “mums the word!” for no apparent reason (5/1)
  • Some British commentator keeps saying “Mo’s the word!” for a very apparent reason (7/1)
  • These aren’t really prop bets (1/1)

Evan Jager’s reaction after he wins gold in the men’s steeplechase:

  • He sprouts wings and turns into an even more majestic creature (3/1)
  • He lifts up his singlet to expose a white shirt with “I’M THE ORIGINAL BOWERMAN BABE” handwritten on it (7/1)
  • He does the Sam Cassell “Big Balls” celebration. Evan, if you’re reading this, please do this (30/1)

We stop under-appreciating Brenda Martinez:

  • What more does she have to do? She rips workouts and posts them on social media for fanboysandgirls to grovel at. She does cool shit to her hair. She seems like a fairly normal, albeit ferocious, human. Let her name ring out, goddammit (4/1)

Galen Rupp’s location during the World Championships:

  • In the stands, with a lolli, cheering on Mo (2/1)
  • Legitimately in Alberto’s pocket somewhere far, far away (3/1)
  • Watching movies and tweeting about it (15/1)
  • In a cryochamber a la Han Solo until his next race (23/1)

Molly Huddle does not get nipped at the line again for a medal:

  • No. There’s no chance this happens again. Molly seems like a very nice person but also the kind of person who will rip your face off (1/1)
  • But what if she does? What if a teammate snags a medal from her again at the line? DOES SHE CRACK? NO. There’s no chance this happens. Can you give negative odds? No idea. But I’m about to (-100/1)
rory linkletter blue jeans mile world record
July 31, 2017

Watch: BYU’s Rory Linkletter runs 4:16.00 blue jeans mile world record at 4,000+ feet

BYU’s Rory Linkletter ran a 4:16:00 mile at 4,600+ feet of elevation in Provo, Utah to set a new Blue Jeans Mile World Record.

spencer brown blue jeans mile world record video
July 31, 2017

WATCH: Records fall at NYC Blue Jeans Mile (Spencer Brown 4:16.38, Jackie Katzman 5:29.13)

Last Thursday night, the Blue Jeans Mile record books were re-written at the CITIUS MAG x Lost Boys Track Club Blue Jeans Mile at the East River Park track in New York City. Spencer Brown, best known for his accomplishments as a middle distance runner for Georgetown or his Youtube channel “The Athlete Special”, ran a men’s world record time of 4:16.63 to win the final race of the night. Jackie Katzman, a runner from Cornell, led three women under the previous women’s world record with her 5:29.30 in the first race of the night.

The previous official world record of 4:34.3 was ran by Pierce Flanders in Topeka, Kansas. Last Thursday morning, an unofficial world record of 4:19 was run by Sean Keveren in Nashville, Tennessee but it was later determined that his jeans did not comply with the 100% cotton or denim regulation that we initially set forth in our introduction to the event. We recognized the time but put an asterisk next to it.

Jackie Katzman finished fifth overall in the first section of the race but became the first woman to run under 5:30 with her 5:29.13. Leigh Anne Sharek crosse the finish line just a second behind her in 5:30.87. Lena Placzek ran 5:1.25 to also get under Anna Saats’ previous world record of 5:56.56.

It was a great time. Lots of laughs were shared. This really escalated into something much bigger than we ever imagined. The next big attempt will come from Utah on Monday morning as NCAA 10K runner-up Rory Linkletter attempts his own blue jean mile on BYU’s track. On Friday night, the Sir Walter Miler will host its own blue jeans mile in collaboration with us and the good folks at Raleigh Denim. More information on that race can be found at the end of this post.

Here are the results of the faster section of the NYC Blue Jeans Mile (Note: Some of our timers didn’t get full names of some of the runners so if you were one of these participants in that’s name is not listed, tweet at us)

  1. Spencer Brown 4:16.63 (WR)
  2. Nick Karam 4:37.89
  3. Pat Donnelly 4:38.82
  4. Kid in Red Adidas Spikes 4:41.87
  5. Kid in Navy Singlet and Green Spikes 4:44.50
  6. Steve Crinick 4:45.83
  7. Matt Smith 4:46.27
  8. Chris Giesting 4:49.49
  9. Matt Crawford 5:01.42
  10. Kid in Dark Singlet with White Number 5:02.74
  11. Kevin Byrne 5:28.65

For an inside look at Spencer Brown’s day and lead-up to the world record, check out the latest episode of The Athlete Special.

Here are the results of our first section of the NYC Blue Jeans Mile(Note: Some of our timers didn’t get full names of some of the runners so if you were one of these participants in that’s name is not listed, tweet at us):

  1. Jonah Shortall 5:16.51
  2. Daniel Medina 5:20.20
  3. William Maghak 5:24.27
  4. Dean D’Addario 5:27.96
  5. Jackie Katzman 5:29.13 (WR)
  6. Leigh Anne Sharek 5:30.87
  7. Dennis ____ 5:36.37
  8. David Meclinsky 5:40.87
  9. Bobby Judge 5:40.97
  10. Lena Placzek 5:51.25
  11. Ali ____ 5:51.80
  12. Omari ____ 6;00.45
  13. Sean Baez 6:10.53

And here’s a look at the men’s all-time Blue Jeans Mile list

(With our NYC additions and the NINE competitors that we had in a all-comers meet in Seattle.)

  1. Spencer Brown (NYC) – 4:16.38
  2. Sean Keveren (TN) – 4:19*
  3. Pierce Flanders (KS) – 4:34.3
  4. Nick Karam (NYC) – 4:37.89
  5. Pat Donnelly (NYC) – 4:38.82
  6. Kid in Red Adidas Spikes (NYC) – 4:41.87
  7. Sandy Roberts (NC) – 4:43
  8. Kid in Navy Singlet and Green Spikes(NYC) – 4:44.50
  9. Steve Crinick(NYC) – 4:45.83
  10. Matt Smith (NYC) – 4:46.27
  11. Ben Nagel (IN) – 4:49.0
  12. Chris Giesting 4:49.49
  13. Drew Polley (WA) – 4:49
  14. Jordan Anderson (WA) – 4:52
  15. Brandon Sotelo (TX) – 4:54
  16. Pete Hanson (WA) – 4:57
  17. Tahoma Doyon (WA) – 5:00
  18. Matt Crawford (NYC) – 5:01.42
  19. Kid in Dark Singlet with White Number 5:02.74
  20. Hunter Hall (TN) – 5:04
  21. Tucker ??? – 5:04.06
  22. Waqar Shaikh (WA) – 5:06
  23. Ryan Solinsky (WA) – 5:07
  24. Luke Jaramillo (KS) – 5:10
  25. Rylan Brown (KS) – 5:10
  26. Dane Legare (WA) – 5:11
  27. Ian Cropp (KS)  – 5:12
  28. Paul Young (WA) – 5:13
  29. Jonah Shortall (NYC) -5:16.51
  30. Ryan Sterner (CA) – 5:17
  31. Daniel Medina(NYC) – 5:20.20
  32. William Maghak (NYC) – 5:24.27
  33. Dean D’Addario(NYC) – 5:27.96
  34. Kevin Byrne (NYC) – 5:28.65
  35. Dennis ____ (NYC) – 5:36.37
  36. David Meclinsky (NYC) – 5:40.87
  37. Bobby Judge (NYC) -5:40.97
  38. Ali ____  (NYC) – 5:51.80
  39. Omari ____(NYC) – 6;00.45
  40. Sean Baez (NYC) – 6:10.53

The women’s all-time list is below:

  1. Jackie Katzman (NYC) – 5:29.13
  2. Leigh Anne Sharek (NYC) – 5:30.87
  3. Lena Placzek (NYC) – 5:51.25
  4. Anna Staats (MD) – 5:56.56
  5. Hillary Shaw (WA) – 6:04
  6. Liza Rectro (MD) – 8:08.51

For more information on racing the Blue Jeans Mile at Sir Walter Miler, check here. 

spencer brown blue jeans mile world record
July 30, 2017

The Athlete Special: Behind the scenes of the Blue Jeans Mile World Record

Spencer Brown gives you a look at his day in the lead-up to breaking the Blue Jeans Mile World Record at the CITIUS MAG x Lost Boys Track Club mile.

sean keveren 4:19 blue jeans mile
July 27, 2017

Watch: Sean Keveren runs 4:19* Blue Jeans Mile

Sean Keveren runs a 4:19 Blue Jeans Mile but we’re putting an asterisk next to it due to a controversial cotton percentage.

blue jeans mile world record
July 26, 2017

New World Records highlight historic day for Blue Jeans Mile

The Blue Jeans Mile history books have been re-written ahead of an epic race in New York City on Thursday night at East River.

July 24, 2017

Does David Blaine have the skills of an elite ultra marathon runner?

David Blaine’s dark eyes stare unblinkingly into yours, reaching out stoically from the confines of your computer screen and intoning the type of quiet, serious concentration you’d expect from a man whose profession is listed as magician.

Wait.

No.

That’s not David Blaine. That is Mitch Stilpa, an actor/comedian from an improv troupe in LA (what a terrible combination of words) whose parody videos of David Blaine’s street magic made a big splash on Funny or Die for a while. Stilpa does a hyperbolic of course, but pretty good impression of Blaine’s trademark destruction of the fourth wall, as he gazes directly into the camera after completing a trick.

The four parody videos have amassed over 78,000,000 views on YouTube, and as HuffPost put it back in 2011, Blaine’s “aesthetic and demeanor make him a pretty solid target for parody.” Magicians in general are rarely respected for their craft, and usually the butt of some jokes or at least emphatic eyerolls. And Blaine’s “Street Magic” concept, where he interacted with apparent strangers on the street for his breakthrough documentary in 1996, was especially ripe for riffing off of.

But while the world was chuckling to itself at David Blaine’s expense, Blaine was reinventing himself as more than just some sort of street vendor illusionist. He was becoming an endurance artist, a career path that involved him existing suspended in a block of ice for 62 hours straight, and spending 44 days sealed inside a glass box 30 feet above the ground in London. The accomplishment of these feats is the crux of my argument. Anyone who can put their body through such physical pain and suffering, who willingly endures extreme discomfort for long stretches of time for no real reason other than to prove that they can was practically born to be an ultra-marathoner. There is a very fine, pretty much nonexistent line between endurance artist and endurance athlete and I for one would love to see how Blaine’s talent as the former translates into his promise for the latter.

Blaine has transcended the realm of magic with most of his acts recently. There’s no real trick or deception going on in the feats he’s managed to pull off. The “magic” is just that he is able to force his body to do completely unnatural things. For example, Blaine’s trick where he eats glass–is actually him eating glass. The man is truly, physically consuming glass. He takes a bite out of a champagne flute and then chews. He bites down again and again, cutting his mouth all over, desecrating his poor chompers, and reducing the glass to little specks until he can swallow it. This type of mind-blowing pain tolerance lends itself easily to the kind of mentality a person covering almost four times the distance of a marathon without really stopping to sleep, and barely eating.

Not only is Blaine capable of withstanding pain over a long portion of time, but he also has a certain level of insanity that seems to be a prerequisite for becoming an ultra runner. He has done tricks that are downright stupidly dangerous. He’s caught a bullet in his mouth on stage, an actual bullet, from a real gun that he caught in a metal cup that he held in his mouth. The amount of confidence Blaine must have in himself in order to believe he can catch a bullet with a cup in his mouth without killing himself makes me think he would have the kind of self-belief important for running up and down steep, rocky trails by yourself for hours on end.

Blaine’s resume does also hint toward an innate aerobic ability. After training and working on techniques to do so, he successfully held his breath for 17 minutes underwater. Which makes me confident in his lung capacity to say the least.

As Ira Glass recently said of Blaine in a This American Life episode, “He works on these things for years, trains his body to do this stuff.” Sounds a lot like the life of an ultra runner to me.

ben nagel world junior blue jeans mile record
July 23, 2017

Watch: Ben Nagel runs 4:49.0 Blue Jeans Mile world junior record

Watch 17-year-old Ben Nagel set the Blue Jeans Mile world junior boys record by running 4:49 on his high school track in Indiana.

July 23, 2017

It’s the 7 year anniversary of shitting my pants

It’s the seven-year anniversary of a terrible afternoon where I lost control of my bowels while running. The epic tale of shitting my shorts on a run.

human vs animal races
July 19, 2017

An incomplete history of human vs. animal races

From Jesse Owens racing horses to Michael Phelps racing a Great White Shark, we’ve always been fascinated by human races vs. animals.

July 19, 2017

Game of Thrones Characters Run a Marathon

Attempting to predict the marathon times for the major characters from Game of Thrones. How would Tyrion Lannister fare in a 26.2 mile race?

July 18, 2017

Researchers: T-rex, the coolest dinosaur actually sucked, couldn’t run

A team out of Manchester University has concluded that the famed T-rex was a whole lot dumber than we’d initially thought, and couldn’t even run.

blue jeans mile angry letter
July 18, 2017

Cranky old-timer pens angry letter over Blue Jeans Mile

A cranky old-timer pens angry letter over Blue Jeans Mile but the show will go on and we’re still excited to see the fast times continue to drop.

July 14, 2017

Study: boy tennis stars legally dope; here are 5 ways I too, legally dope

To paraphrase an article which ran today on Wired’s UK website that paraphrased the results of a study conducted somewhat through the Queensland University of Technology Business School:

World class male tennis players are legally doping through increases in testosterone brought about by something called the “winner effect.”

The study, which was undertaken by two men named John Coates and Lionel Page, essentially lends credence to the validity of the highly disputed “hot hands effect.” Page and Coates looked at the outcome of roughly 400,000 pro tennis matches. They then zeroed in on matches between closely ranked players, and further reduced the scope of the survey by only analyzing matches in which the first set went down to a tie-breaker.

They found that in men, the winner of the first set in these select matches had a 60% shot at winning the second set, compared to a 51% second-set-winning-percentage for women. From this, the researchers inferred that the increase in testosterone that comes from a victory was the cause–and thus the Wired author drew the conclusion that male tennis players are legally doping.

As a retired competitive runner myself, I don’t really have the opportunity to “win” or “lose” anything, anymore, in the conventional sense. But buddy, that doesn’t mean I’m not legally doping! Here are five ways I enhance my performance daily–that wouldn’t result in a positive drug test!

  1. Eat a salad–I try to eat one of these bowls of leafy greens at least once a week. They’re chock-full of nutrients and vitamins which are good for the body’s various mechanisms and if you’re sick of eating using just your hands, salads can be a fun change of pace as they require the use of a fork.
  2. Research–One simply must stay abreast of the latest in training technique. And thanks to the recent advent of the Internet, that’s never been easier! I spend hours daily in front of the computer refreshing a Google search for “workout tips and pointers,” and it’s a crucial part of how I continually better my game.
  3. Push-ups–Nothing earns the respect and admiration of passersby quite like public displays of strength. When I’m about town, I make sure to capitalize on that fact. Stopping, dropping, and cranking out a quick set of 15 push-ups in the middle of a crowded sidewalk is a great way to harness the respect of others, and convert it into strength-building testosterone.
  4. Sleep–Most doctors recommend getting eight hours of sleep a night. So logically, by sleeping for nearly twice that amount daily, I’m getting that much better as a person, friend, and athlete. I shoot for 16 hours of nightly snoozing, and it shows.
  5. Outfits—Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw once famously opined: “I like my money where I can see it, hanging in my closet.” I couldn’t agree more, because having lots of clothes and wearing most of them at once is a surefire way to be your best self. Layering is not just savvy from a comfort perspective, by wearing tons of shirts at once, you appear bigger than you are, which is a sign of strength in the animal kingdom.
running etiquette pedestrians
July 12, 2017

Running etiquette: How to interact with pedestrians without being a jerk

We discuss the proper running etiquette as it pertains to interacting with the non-running general public. We’ve all been assholes, but we needn’t be.

womens blue jeans mile record
July 11, 2017

Anna Staats sets women’s world record, world junior record for Blue Jeans Mile

Anna Staat put on her best pair of mom jeans and ran the women’s world record and a world junior record for the Blue Jeans Mile.

July 11, 2017

Did you forget about the Nike Zoom Vaporfly?

Take a look at some never before seen footage of the Nike Zoom Vaporfly. The sub 2 hour marathon shoe will be available to buy this month.

July 8, 2017

How to run in extreme conditions

Los Angeles is in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave. Ryan Sterner shares the best tips on running in extreme weather conditions.

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