Maggie's Running Podcast

Have you seen the running shoes from FBR? They don't have a heel. It made me wonder if there was an advantage of not having a heel in terms of the weight that was saved by having no heel. I look at an article showing the effect of the weight of the shoe on running economy and a guy who did a slightly crazy experiment which involved cutting up his running shoes. I look at the results from both these studies. I also briefly look at a paper showing the effect of movement on the production of immune cells to fight infection.

Does the time of day that you run really affect your performance? What's the best time of day to run? What's the most beautiful parkrun in the country? And is there a dancer inside of you waiting to get out? These are the questions that I ask in this week's podcast with a more detailed look at a paper from Nature Research's Scientific Reports (2020) 10:16088 entitled Gold, silver or bronze: circadian variation strongly affects performance in Olympic athletes.

What is retro running and is it something that we should be embracing? We're not talking about putting on your 1970s running kit here but can retro running help reduce injury or be part of rehabilitation post injury. We also look at Wirral AC's success in the England Athletics virtual road relays and some interesting indoor races.

In this week's episode we look at a paper about sleep and the athlete from Br J Sports Med 2020. We discuss the problems that athletes, particularly elite athletes, might have with sleep and what we can do about it. We talk about good sleep hygiene and provide some advice about how to provide a good atmosphere for sleep.

If you've been paying attention to the discussion about equalising the distances in men's and women's cross country then you will know that the debate is quite polarised. I was interested to discuss the subject with women's athletics historian, Katie Holmes. We were coming from slightly different standpoints but highlighted the arguments from both sides. I also have a story about a woman beating all the men in the field It was also the Kenyan National Cross Country Championships this weekend so I took a look at the results.

I imagine that I'm running like a deer, elegant, powerful, relaxed, in control but the race photos are a continual disappointment, showing some mad woman, hair everywhere, grimacing in pain. The bible says The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights. I think I'd like feet like deer both for running and for life.

I think most of us are feeling the stress of lockdown. The not knowing, the uncertainty is having an effect on us all. What is going on in our brains and what can we do about it?

Do we need to take vitamin D supplements? It's a good question for those of us who live far north of the equator. Just what are the benefits of vitamin D and how much vitamin D do we actually need. I review a paper from the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism in today's episode to help you understand some of the reasons why it's important to have enough vitamin D.

Children are restricted from running certain distances in some countries but is there any scientific evidence to show that running long distances is harmful? I found an interesting article from Curr Sports Med Rep 2017;16(6):428-434 entitled the The Pediatric Endurance Athlete which looks at the important considerations for our young athletes and discuss the paper in today's podcast.

It isn't often you get a race where there is just one woman competing against a whole bunch of men, it's even rarer when that one woman beats all the men. But that's exactly what happened recently in Mumbai in a 24hr track race.

While my parkrun barcode gathers dust on my chest of drawers, speed Lauren Reid has been smashing the parkrun world record down under.

Katie Holmes only started running when she was 47 but she's fallen in love with the sport. So much so that she's now studying the history of women's athletics, particularly road running and fell running. She gives us a unique perspective on what running was like before the 'marathon boom' of the 70's and 80's changed things for ever. Read more on her blog www.runyoung50.co.uk.

Do you ever get weary of training? Do you ever get weary of doing the right thing? The bible talks about the rewards of doing good and, as with life, so it is when we do our training, we will reap the rewards.

We all know that exercise is good for us, but it's especially good for us as we get older. The benefits for the heart and lungs are pretty clear but the benefits for the immune system are less well known. However, even a small amount of exercise each day can be beneficial.

We've all be forced to train in public spaces, this isn't so bad for endurance athletes, but how are the sprinters coping. A recent article in the guardian reported that elite Welsh athletes had had abuse thrown at them while training in public spaces. What can be done about this?

All of us have had to get used to wearing face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic but so far, we haven't been made to wear them while exercising outside. Would wearing a face mask while running affect performance? Are there any other problems with wearing a face mask while exercising? I look at the science literature in search of answers to these questions in today's episode.

Is it a bit weird to greet people when you are out running or is this standard running etiquette? I don't want to appear like a madman but I quite like a cheery 'hello', a nod of the head or a smile. Is this a thing of the past?

You might have heard in the financial news about a group of small investors who took on the might of the hedge funds by buying GameStop stock. Well you might not know about the man behind this and how he was able to give the big hedge funds a run for their money.

There was no mile or 1500m for women in the 1960 Olympic Games, but in 1961 my mum, Liz Joyce, ran the world leading time for the mile. She never got the opportunity to run at an Olympic Games, a World Championship or similar international athletics meeting because the furthest women were allowed to run was 200m. Athletics has moved on a lot since then, we discuss what it was like for women running back in the late 1950's, some of her crazy anecdotes and the differences between running then and running now, from a women's perspective. It's a timely interview with much discussion going on about #runequal and equality for women running cross country.

What happens when you lose your focus on running, when you get distracted by other worldly pursuits? There is a path to redemption, and just as with life you can seek forgiveness, so your running sins can be forgiven. In today's podcast I look at what we can learn from the story of David and Bathsheba.