Runner’s Life Newsletter

Highlights and stories from April 28-May 11, 2024

Jeff Barton

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Runner's Life

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5 min readMay 12, 2024

Welcome to the Runner’s Life newsletter!

If you’ve missed previous Runner’s Life newsletters, you can find the archive here.

Below are the most recent editions of Amby Burfoot’s weekly newsletter titled Run Long, Run Healthy, where he publishes short summaries and links to the Internet’s most recent and scientific reviews of running information so you can learn how to be better at running.

Train Less, Run Faster (Yes, You CAN); Be Younger Than Your Birthdays; Lessons From 6-Day Runners

Exercise Like Hunter-Gatherers; Stride Right For Faster Running; The Magic Of Run-Walk Training

Previous editions of Run Long, Run Healthy newsletters can be found here.

Featured Stories

Women Running Through Time by Cheryl Weaver

I shouldn’t consider it an accomplishment to wake up at 4:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. But I do, even though I’m a morning person and waking requires little effort on my part. I shouldn’t consider running nearly every day much of an accomplishment either. But I do, especially because now, almost fifty years old, my running self has only recently reemerged. My pace is slow, yet I plan to run until I finish a marathon.
Thirty years ago, I jogged all the time. I released pent-up anxiety by coursing through my neighborhood after school and on weekends. The single-family homes in my small western New York town provided smooth sidewalks to avoid the uneven trail terrain of the defunct apple orchards that bordered the tracts. I’d pass friends’ houses, kids playing in front yards, fathers mowing the lawn, and mothers watering their flowers as my mind focused solely on the rhythm of my body and the music playing through my headphones.
My mother let me know that others always watched. “The soccer coach told his team about your runs.” She looked up at me, proud. “He said that they were being lazy and that he saw Cheryl Weaver running through town all the time, even after her practices.” She smiled. “See? Your drive and ambition are what will get you through. People notice, Cheryl. People notice.”
Embarrassed, I didn’t want them to.

I started running because it kept me from crying. I was 11 years old and my oldest sister, who was also my best friend, had been diagnosed with leukemia. I was scared she was going to die, and I had nowhere to go with my fears. One summer day a few months after her diagnosis, I started walking towards the dirt road that ran past our house and my legs kept moving, faster and faster, until I was running down the road away from our farm.
I ran two miles that day — the most liberating two miles of my life. I found a salve for my wounds that no one could take away. The power of movement and physical exertion with the wind at my back and the sun on my face was an exhilarating freedom. Running became my sacred space and where I went to make sense of the world. It was both therapy and an escape — the antidote to my pain and where I could go to feel whole and powerful.

My sister survived, and I kept running, eventually tackling my first marathon as part of the Leukemia Society’s Team in Training program. It felt like a fitting tribute to my sister and her survival. At that race, I learned about the prestige of running in the Boston Marathon and what it took to qualify. I began studying qualifying times and secretly wishing I could join the ranks of Boston runners. The year was 1998, and I was 24 years old.
I didn’t run another marathon for a few years but shaved 15 minutes off my time. It was still far from the Boston requirement. I trained for a few more races, but could never quite make the cut-off time, or I’d get injured before even making it to the start line. I came close in 2013 and ran the same course in 2018 thinking familiarity with the course would help. I ran even slower.
Boston felt like the holy grail I’d never find. I chalked up my failures to some physical capacity that I lacked. I just wasn’t fast enough. Period.