Author: Trotzendorff

People running in Prague half marathon in the spring of 2016.

«I made a horrible choice»: How a blogger discovered a runner cheating in a half-marathon

Published by Trotzendorff

«I think most peo­ple aren’t aware of how much cheat­ing goes on in marathons.» Were you aware? I was­n’t. But Derek Mur­phy, an inde­pen­dent marathon inves­ti­ga­tor, should know. He recent­ly took par­tic­u­lar care to exam­ine the case of Jane Seo, a food and fit­ness writer in New York City. She fin­ished sec­ond among the women in Sunday’s Fort Laud­erdale Half Marathon in 1 hour and 21 min­utes, a blaz­ing 6:15 mile. But she cheated.

A man is running in the park.

Unlocking Ideas

Published by Trotzendorff

Have you ever had an idea while you were run­ning? If so, you’re not alone. Like tak­ing a show­er or going for a walk, run­ning is one of those activ­i­ties that stim­u­late cre­ativ­i­ty. «The hours we spend on our feet have a way of unlock­ing ideas that would oth­er­wise be out of reach,» so it says in a text about the «Track­smith Fel­low­ship». The inde­pen­dent run­ning brand from New Eng­land has designed this pro­gram to sup­port run­ners with cre­ative ambi­tions. But why?

A woman is running in a park.

Why exercise plays a crucial role in Covid recovery

Published by Trotzendorff

For many peo­ple the Coro­na pan­dem­ic is hit­ting clos­er to home. In the last weeks I have come across a lot of Insta­gram posts by run­ners who have con­tract­ed with the virus or who are instruct­ed to quar­an­tine them­selves. And while most peo­ple who catch the dis­ease expe­ri­ence mild symp­toms, many report feel­ing short of breath and slug­gish for weeks after­ward. But you all know what run­ners are like: they want to return to track or trail, and that soon­er rather than lat­er. I have found sev­er­al arti­cles pro­vid­ing tipps for your come­back after infec­tion. First, the good news: the two go togeth­er, «exer­cise plays a cru­cial role in recov­ery,» as Manuela Callari writes in a piece for The Guardian: «Sleep and rest help your immune sys­tem to fight the dis­ease but it is crit­i­cal to start mov­ing again to avoid fur­ther weak­en­ing of your body about sev­en days after the major symp­toms have disappeared.»

Woman eating french fries.

The Palatability Theory

Published by Trotzendorff

There are clear and unan­i­mous fig­ures that obe­si­ty has increased over time, espe­cial­ly in rich nations like the Unit­ed States. On aver­age peo­ple today weigh more and have high­er body fat per­cent­ages than their recent ances­tors at sim­i­lar ages. But why is that the case? One wide­spread assump­tion is the palata­bil­i­ty the­o­ry. It posits that the pri­ma­ry cause is an increase in reward sig­nals in the mod­ern envi­ron­ment from processed food, medi­at­ed by the moti­va­tion sys­tem in the brain, caus­ing us to overeat.

People sitting in a coffee bar.

Protective Effects against Asthma

Published by Trotzendorff

I was just hav­ing my first cup of cof­fee in the morn­ing, when an arti­cle on sprudge.com popped up in my feed read­er. As an asth­mat­ic and cof­fee enthu­si­ast it nat­u­ral­ly caught my atten­tion. It reports about a study by med­ical pro­fes­sion­als from Korea’s Hal­lym Uni­ver­si­ty, Hanyang Uni­ver­si­ty, and Kang­dong Sacred Heart Hos­pi­tal, with research find­ing that mod­er­ate cof­fee con­sump­tion can low­er the fre­quen­cy of symp­toms asso­ci­at­ed with asthma.