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The most influential man in American public health is a 79-year-old former marathoner who jogs and power walks as much as possible. ‘There was almost nothing that could stop us,’ his running partner says

As the novel coronavirus rapidly spread worldwide and concern continues to grow, a number of international sporting events have been impacted, including several professional running events. One of the first major events to see a shift in schedule was the Tokyo Marathon at the beginning of March; the marathon was only held for the elites, and the non-elite runners were given entry to the 2021 race. With the global crisis becoming more dire, race organizers have proactively started to reschedule or altogether cancel races set to take place in the next few weeks, due to the uncertainty of the virus’s...

A self-proclaimed "vegan runner" from Berkeley, California received backlash on Saturday after asking neighbors to close their windows when cooking meat because the smells were 'overpowering and offensive.' The rant was posted to @BestNextDoor -- an account that houses neighborhood drama -- which showed the runner had requested nearby residents only barbeque vegetables because it's "always hard for me this time of year when the weather starts warming up." "Several nights a week I'm out running around dinnertime and when people have their windows open I can smell what they are cooking," the request said. "I've noticed a sharp uptick...

Four years ago, Molly Seidel wasn’t just the next big thing. She was the top female distance runner in the NCAA with four national titles and the Olympic Trials on the horizon. But instead of signing a splashy contract with a shoe company, Seidel was sidelined with a sacral stress fracture and watched the U.S. Olympic Track Trials from the stands at Hayward Field, where her Notre Dame teammate Dani Aragon gave her a reality check. “You look like you’re dying,” Seidel remembers her friend saying. “You need to get help.” The truth was, the fastest woman in the NCAA...

An Australian runner found an unpleasant surprise while running on Monday near his home in New South Wales. Paul Roberts, 42, was doing run-walk intervals at Lake Macquarie State Conservation Park. when he saw what looked like a man-made pile of leaves along the trail. Though not heavily populated, the trail does get foot and bike traffic, which is why Roberts was shocked when he kicked off the top of the leaves and found wine corks with nails through them. These are similar to historic weapons known as caltrops. At first, Roberts said he didn’t think much of his initial...

To close out her 2019, Lupita Hernandez stopped after every mile to plant a small flag along Interstate-10 between Houston and San Antonio. Each pause in her 200-mile run was to honor a fellow veteran battling post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), something she has dealt with since she retired from the Marines in 2004. PTSD still affects her life each day, whether personally or in Hernandez’s work in the Veteran Treatment Court in Harris County, Texas. On average, 22 veterans commit suicide everyday, and that’s a statistic that is always on her mind. “I wanted to bring awareness to the stigma...

At the starting line, I stamped my feet in the snow and repeated this mantra: ‘There’ll be hot wine at the end.’ The promise of plentiful wine, local color, and a unique experience had drawn me to travel on a bitingly cold, gray January weekend to Moldova, one of the least-visited countries in Europe. I was running the Mileștii Mici Wine Run, a 10k race through the world's largest wine cellar. With a total 125 miles of underground passages, there’s plenty of room to stage an ultra here; the 10K Wine Run explores a mere fraction of the tunnels. Conditions...

When Dave Cassidy was asked to help a group of women train for the 2010 Walt Disney World Half Marathon, he readily accepted. Cassidy worked in the sports rehabilitation department at what was then Florida Hospital, but he likely never had done something like this before. Neither had the women, nearly 20 in all, competitive to their core but with little experience running, much less that far. "He really became the center of why we were there,'' said Kari Conley, one of the runners. "I don’t know if we could have achieved it without him.'' Cassidy helped 16 of the...

I certainly didn’t fit the classic profile of the aging stroke victim. At the time of my brain explosion, I was 38. I’d run eight half-marathons and had a diet and exercise regimen that helped me cross those finish lines. But I also had an intense job that involved booking groups—including NBA teams—into hotels in San Francisco. That’s what I was doing at 2 a.m. on the Friday before Christmas in 2013, welcoming the Los Angeles Lakers to their hotel. I got four hours of sleep that night, then drove 90 miles to my mother’s house to drop off holiday...

Two and a half years ago, Erin Menefee didn’t know if she’d be able to run competitively again after having open heart surgery. But on December 8, the 27-year-old physical therapist realized her dream when she qualified for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials at the California International Marathon (CIM) in Sacramento with a time of 2:43:10. Surrounded by dozens of other women who qualified for the first time, Menefee basked in the accomplishment of a goal that motivated her throughout the long recovery. For the first time since she underwent surgery for a rare congenital heart defect in July...

Reuban Kipyego took his pacing duties an unexpected step further when he won the Abu Dhabi Marathon on Friday, December 6. As the designated runner who was tasked with pacing the elite field through a specific point in the race, the 23-year-old Kenyan was expected to drop out around 30K. But Kipyego kept running all the way through the finish line, breaking the tape in a time of 2:04:40. The pacemaker turned champion beat runner-up Joel Kimurer by a minute and 41 seconds. As the marathon champion, Kipyego earned $100,000 in prize money. “I was setting the pace for the...

Aaron Stevens will run the Boston Marathon for the sixth time in April, and his fifth as part of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute team. For each of the past two years, he has raised $16,000 for the cancer center. The effort is personal. Stevens lost a cousin in her 30s to colon cancer, and his father survived grueling treatment for bladder cancer that included a nine-week stay in intensive care. He’s got his two-pronged fundraising strategy down pat—an email list of 500 people get monthly appeals from him, and he can count on at least 100 of those people to...

My friend Maureen Callahan (who, like me, is a longtime fan of Howard Stern’s celebrity interviews, which elicit more frankness than anybody’s) says Hillary Clinton’s appearance on the Stern show amounts to her “biggest hint yet that she’s mulling a 2020 presidential run.” Clinton is ostensibly on tour to promote one of those “book projects” — I didn’t say “books” — slapped together by ghostwriters that she and her daughter keep putting their names on for the apparent sole purpose of giving them a hook for television appearances. As Callahan notes, on the Stern show Clinton more or less dropped...

The holiday season brings with it festive treats, sparkling lights, and The Radio City Rockettes. And, for many of these high-kicking dancers, running throughout the year ensures they can perfectly execute their routines multiple times a day all season long. In preparation for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, the women spend months rehearsing for six hours a day, six days a week. During the height of the Christmas season from the beginning of November through the beginning January, the 36 dancers are performing up to four 90-minute shows a day, as many as 17 per week. During this time, their...

Eliud Kipchoge captured the attention of the world when he broke the two-hour marathon barrier in October. Whether watching live or through replays and highlights, the Kenyan runner inspired runners all over the world. For Jon Ornee of Holland, Michigan, it certainly sparked a fire following months of recovery after being hit by a car while cycling in May. “I was inspired to really double down on getting after things that I love and make the best of this awesome life I’ve got,” Ornee, 38, told Runner’s World. “Once I was able to train again, I decided I wanted to...

In 2011, Allie Kieffer ran a 4:40.9 mile and placed third in the USA Track & Field Indoor Championships 3,000-meter event. She was fast. But she wanted to be faster. “We often hear that to run faster, you should lose weight,” Kieffer says. At 17 percent body fat, the now 32-year-old was already lean, but “everyone seemed leaner than me.” So, as she made the jump to the elite scene, Kieffer began cutting calories and fat. She lost 10 pounds and qualified for the upcoming Olympic Trials. She also developed a stress reaction in her tibia. Not only did running...

When Nate Boutcher was 22, he found out his kidneys were failing. He wasn’t totally shocked by the doctor’s news, since his dad had suffered from kidney failure throughout Boutcher’s childhood, but the diagnosis still hit him hard. Like most undergrads, he thought he was invincible at the time. “I knew that I had scarring on my kidneys when I was 18, but I didn’t think it would get any worse. When I went in at age 22, I had some swelling, but I thought it was because I needed stronger medicine—but it turned out, I had severe kidney failure,”...

“Why haven’t we been told this information?” A coach at a clinic asked me this near the end of a presentation I gave about my eating disorder, where I told my recovery story and offered strategies for what coaches can do to support their athletes. Disordered eating stories amongst runners seem to have been shared mostly through murmurs between coaches and private conversations between athletes who were feeling alone and struggling in silence. As a cross-country coach for Grandville High School in Michigan—four years assistant, two years head coach—I’ve noticed that eating disorders in sport is not a regular or...

Before her life changed last year, Lauren Ziegler hated running. The Grand Valley State University student, now 22, grew up playing team sports in high school, then joined a CrossFit club in college as a way to stay fit as an undergrad. “I started competing in CrossFit competitions in college,” Ziegler told Runner’s World. “I loved every part of my CrossFit workouts except for the running. It was my least favorite thing in the world. The most I would ever run was two or three miles a week.” One morning before class in December 2018, Ziegler woke up to find...

In her decade of living and running with cancer, last year was Carol Chaoui’s toughest yet. But in 2019, she’s mounted a remarkable comeback. She has stage 4 breast cancer and stage 4 thyroid cancer, but Chaoui, now 56, finished the New York City Marathon on November 3 in 5:39:34—faster than 13-minute pace—even though she has tumors all over her body, including in her brain. And she mostly walked for the last 19 miles after stumbling several times in the early going. “I’m a pretty fast walker,” she quipped after the race. Chaoui was first diagnosed with breast cancer in...