Why you Should Run

I could talk about the numerous health benefits and the extensive research people have done on running, but that doesn’t seem like it’s enough to convince people to start running. I have been running on a daily basis for a pretty long time now so it’s hard to envision the perspective of someone who doesn’t run. Once you get out the door you’ll be fine. The hardest part of running for me even now is starting. I’ve never regretted going out on a run. I always feel accomplished like I actually did something productive, no matter how much I didn’t do today. But getting up from my warm cozy bed after watching 3 hours of Netflix and walking out of the front door seems impossible at times. The whole runner’s high is most definitely a thing and I can guarantee you will feel good after a run. You may be a hot, sweaty mess and your legs may be screaming at you but you will feel better than you did before you ran. Not to get too sciencey but your body releases endorphins in your brain that actually improve your mood. In a sense, running is like taking drugs without all the life ruining side effects.

Running, contrary to popular belief, is a very social experience. Most people start running and end up stopping because it’s boring or they get lonely. If you start running find someone or a group of people to run with. It makes running a lot more run and it keeps you accountable. I would have a very hard time running every day if I didn’t run with other people. Running with people is especially fun when those people are some of your good friends. You literally get to hang out with your friends and get all the benefits of running all at the same time. I recommend for you to start running because it makes you a happier, more social person.

Why I Run

After reading my last blog post you may be asking, “Okay well why do you run?” I thank you dearly for asking, I’d love to inform you. 

Running has become such an integral part of my life and my body’s internal clock that I almost have to run to maintain normality. If I don’t run for any more than a week, it feels like I start to go crazy. I have so much energy and I can’t focus on homework. My body literally starts to malfunction. 

At times I also use running as a procrastination tool, I call it “productive procrastination”. I’m going to set a scene, it’s 5:30 on a Sunday night, you’ve just woken up from an amazing nap and you have a bunch of homework that you don’t really feel like doing at that moment. But, you realize that you also still haven’t run today. You breathe a sigh of relief and get ready for your run. For the next hour-ish you get to transport yourself out of all the stress and bullshit life throws at you and just relax. This story is a very accurate description of 9 out of 10 of my Sundays. Whenever I run, I can just forget about the world and  take my mind off everything. Sometimes I wish I could run forever because of how therapeutic it is for me. It’s an extremely freeing experience. 

Also running is fun, whether I’m by myself or I’m in a group. When I’m by myself, I can plug my headphones in and freaking bump the entire run. When I’m with a group, I can converse with my boys and the run flies by. 

I really can’t see myself not running because of its importance in my life. My body literally can’t function without it, it helps relieve stress, and it’s hella fun.

Running Shorts

“Eww, why are they so short?” “Put some pants on.” These are common responses from people when they see me in running shorts. 

Running shorts might be the single greatest invention ever created. They are incredibly comfortable, it literally feels like you’re not even wearing anything. They are so comfortable I am actually wearing a pair of them right now as I write this. A common question I get asked is if anything accidently slips out. There is a liner that prevents anything getting out or other people seeing anything. The liner also gives you the choice to wear underwear or not. I advise you to not wear underwear because it can cause chafing. Trust me that is the absolute worst place to chafe. 

The function of running shorts is to keep the body as cool as possible. So to be effective at doing that they have to be short. The shorter the better. I highly recommend runners who don’t wear running shorts to try them out. I will admit they do feel a little revealing at the start, but you will soon learn to love them. Also, running shorts are extremely light to quisk away moisture and so they don’t weigh you down. Most of them come in very vibrant colors and cool designs. The producers of running shorts have found the balance of fashion and function. The shorts themselves look nice and the bright colors make sure people see you when you’re out on the streets.

I personally don’t know a whole lot about what specific brands carry the best running shorts. But I have both BOA and Nike shorts, and they work quite well. I like BOA’s shorts maybe a bit better because they are full split shorts. Which means they cut the outside material almost to the hip, as seen in the picture above. 

The Nike Vaporfly Next%

About a month ago there was a discussion within the International Association of Athletics Foundations (IAAF) about the Nike Vaporfly Next% ‘s. The IAAF were thinking about banning the shoe from competition. Their argument came from the fact that the shoe provided an unfair advantage for runners and not all athletes had access to the shoe.

Nike’s original carbon fiber plated, ultra foam shoe claims that the shoe makes runners 4% more efficient when they hit the ground, which could translate to whopping minutes off their marathon time. But Nike, in 2019, released their second version, the Vaporfly Next% that supposedly increase efficiency anywhere from 4 to 6%. This efficiency is due to the design of the shoe. To begin, Nike used a new type of foam Pebax which is even lighter than more traditional foam and at the same time provides even more cushioning and energy return. The second part of the shoe is the carbon fiber plate which is sandwiched in the middle of the foam. The plate runs from the midfoot all the way up the forefoot. The science behind the plate is that it acts as an extension of your foot. The plate is placed under the toes and basically negates the need to use the stabilizing muscles in the toes. While the energy expended by your toe muscles seems negligible initially, over the course of the approximately 55,000 steps in a marathon that energy expended can add up. 

The Vaporfly Next% ‘s were made for elite runners in the sense of their running gait. The most efficient way to hit the ground with your foot is landing at the midfoot to forefoot and most elite runners strike the ground that way. The geometry of the shoe made for a midfoot to forefoot runner. Also, the shoe has a very soft heel with little stability, which is crucial for a more casual runner who heel strikes. 

Carbon Plated Running Shoes

Now that we all know about the function and how the Vaporflys work. We must discuss whether or not the shoes should be banned. The IAAF released a statement on the Vaporflys and any other carbon-plated shoe. They said that they would permit the use of these shoes in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, but they banned the use of prototypes that were not available to everyone, like the Aphaflys Kipchoge broke 2 hours for the marathon in.

I agree with the IAAF’s stance. Everyone should have access to the best shoes possible. Like every other well known professional athlete, good professional runners are sponsored. A company gives the athlete money for the athlete to wear and endorse the company’s product. A lot of these companies are shoe companies and for runners shoes are the most important and only form of equipment. So to have the best, most innovative shoe would help runners the most. When the Vaporflys originally came out, the runners sponsored by the other companies couldn’t run in them because the other companies didn’t want their runners wearing a rival company’s product. Because of this, Nike and their runners have been dominant in marathons ever since the Vaporflys came out. In 2018, of the 6 Abbott World Marathon Majors, which are the 6 biggest, most renowned marathons in the world, 5 of the men’s winners and 3 of the women’s winners wore Nike shoes. Nike continued its dominance in 2019 with all 6 of the men and 4 of the women winning in Nikes. 

Other shoe companies have been going crazy trying to replicate Nike’s Vaporflys, and now in 2020, they have finally created their own carbon fiber plate based shoe. All the relevant running shoe companies, Brooks, Asics, Hoka, New Balance, Adidas, Saucony, have made their own rendition of the shoe. 

Now every sponsored, professional runner has a carbon plate based running shoe thus evening the playing field. Even amature runners can use them if they are willing to drop a sizable amount of money.

Oxygen Efficiency

In the wake of the current pandemic known as the coronavirus I wanted to see what exactly the virus did to the human body. As I researched I found out that Covid-19 mostly attacks the lungs. Most people who end up getting it experience flu-like symptoms, but for the few that have weaker immune systems or already lingering lung problems the coronavirus can be fatal. 

The virus starts by infecting a person’s airways. It slowly creeps down into the lungs inflaming the lining of one’s air passages. The virus finally gets to the alveoli, tiny air sacs where there is a rapid exchange of gases, and inflames them causing the cells to secrete liquid. The liquid builds up and ultimately clogs the gaseous exchange in the alveoli. Making it hard to get oxygen in and carbon dioxide out of the bloodstream. The severely infected person can die from pneumonia which is when the lungs fill up with liquid and one, in a scene, drowns from the inside. 

During the course of the track season my team and I have participated in these VO2 max workouts which basically serve to increase how efficient a runner is in taking oxygen. The goal of these workouts is to train your body to get as much oxygen into your body as possible as well as using that oxygen in the most efficient way possible. For muscles/ muscle fibers to function there needs to be oxygen present so the better a runner’s body can get oxygen to their muscles the more muscles the runner can use which in turn makes the runner faster. 

While there is no scientific research about whether or not a runner could handle the coronavirus better than a non runner. Someone who runs may have a better chance at potentially surviving the virus because they are better at using the minimal amount of oxygen available. This is just an observation and I’m not trying to make light of the virus, but I thought there could be a correlation.

Food and Nutrition

Obviously you need food to survive and you kind of need food to run as well. First things first, runners need to eat more because they are burning more calories than the average person. I personally don’t really put a lot of thought or really even pay attention to what I eat. I just know I eat a lot and that’s good because I’m running a good amount and I still tell myself that I’m growing (short kings stand up). I know my oblivious, ignorant, teenage mindset on proper nutrition will come back to bite me in the ass one day.

A runner’s diet should consist of mostly carbohydrates as they are a runner’s main source of energy. There are two types of carbs: simple and complex. Simple carbs, glucose are the most basic carbs and are broken down and used up very quickly in the body, so those carbs are not very useful to anyone running more than a quarter mile. However, complex carbs such as pasta and some breads, are broken down into monosaccharides that are transferred into the blood to be used later. As a runner’s muscles start to work and go through cellular respiration the cells call on the monosaccharides, where the cells break the monosaccharides down into glycogen. 

Carbohydrates aren’t the only nutrient that is important to a runner. Protein is also key in a runner’s diet, it stimulates muscle growth and helps the body recover faster by rebuilding muscle fibers. Because protein stimulates rebuilding muscle, runners who get the right amount of protein are less likely to get injured. 

While not as prominent to low key, lower-ish mileage runners like myself, fat can be important to runners. Fat intake is more catered to marathon/ ultra marathon runners because when runners run out of glycogen from the carbs the body starts to burn fat. Marathon runners are well versed in this switch, this happens between the 18th and 20th mile and is typically known as the wall. If you’ve seen anyone that regularly runs marathons they usually don’t have a whole lot of fat on them. This is why they call it the wall, they hardly have any fat to burn and once their bodies use up that fat they start to burn muscle. One way marathoners combat this is to take little glycogen boosting gels to keep the body from having to burn fat.

Running Music

Because of this pandemic and the social distancing stipulations put in place, I have had to run by myself a lot more than I would like to. And the next best thing to do to not completely die of boredom if you cannot run with someone else is to listen to music. Yet even that can become a chore. Earbuds or phone speakers? Use the arm sleeve holder thing or carry the phone in your hand? Through my years of experience and testing I have developed a pretty good idea of the optimal way to listen to music through your phone. I personally sweat an annoyingly bigger amount than most people which is very annoying when I run with my phone because of the possibility of sweat getting in my phone and ruining it (I know that sweating is my body’s natural way of cooling itself but it is honestly a little much sometimes). So at temperatures 70 degrees or higher I wrap my phone in saran wrap to protect it from sweat and I can still change the song and volume with relative ease. Now about using earbuds, as discussed earlier I sweat a lot so I almost never use earbuds because most of the time they will just fall out. The only time I use earbuds is in the winter when I’m wearing a hat, since the hat holds the earbuds in my ear. 

Now to talk about what music to listen to when running. It is completely up to what music will motivate you to run at that specific instance, whether that is relaxing, chill music, hard, bumping music, or even some sad boi hours music. For more chill, vibey music, I suggest a bit of Brockhampton or Smino. For bumping music, right now I have been listening to a lot of Pop Smoke specifically Dior and Welcome to the Party, I also recommend Travis Scott or Playboi Carti. For sad boi hours music, I listen to Drake, Juice Wrld, or The Weeknd. All three of those artists can fit into any of those other categories, but I like their sadder songs.

Alberto Salazar

I have no good intro into this topic. I just want to talk about Alberto Salazar because I thought it was interesting, so now I’m going to discuss him and the doping case around him. 

Salazar had been a successful runner winning a couple NCAA cross country championships in college and winning three New York Marathons after college. 

Then in 2001 Nike created the Nike Oregon Project and elected Salazar as the primary coach. At that time Salazar had already had a reputation of being as cutting-edge as possible when it came to improving his runners. The Project and Salazar were first put under criticism in 2002 when they had their athletes living in houses that had filters in it that would filter out some of oxygen thus replicating high altitude. The advantage of living in high altitude is the athletes produce more blood cells which allows their cells to carry more oxygen, so when the athletes go back down to lower elevation their muscles receive an extra boost when more oxygen is present. Both the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and the World Anti-Doping Agency launched separate investigations on the legality of the high altitude houses and were ultimately banned. 

In 2019, Salazar was officially banned from coaching for four years by the USADA for doping offenses, which included trafficking testosterone and tampering with doping control methods. Several athletes from the Oregon Project have also come forward and talked about Salazar’s suspect style. Salazar wanted to get as close to the line without crossing it, but he may have stepped in the grey area a few too many times which ultimately led to his coaching ban. 

Not only do the alliations tarnish Salazar’s reputation, they also ruin his athletes’ credibility. Just because there is a small relation to Salazar an athlete can get cooked by the media making them look bad to the public even though the athlete may have never been a part of the doping offenses. It should be known that none of the Oregon Project athletes failed any sort of drug test.

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