I’ve got a pretty bad case of the runs.

There’s something that happens to me when I’m revving up to try running again. Other on-again, off-again runners (and I use the term runner loosely) can probably relate. I start dreaming about running. And in my dreams, I’m running smoothly and painlessly and I feel immense joy. My nighttime dreams become daydreams. Then I start talking about it out loud.

“I’m thinking of giving running another try,” I say and get a surge of happiness. My friends roll their eyes, “Oh my God, the running again.”

Eventually, inspiration meets courage. I lace up those sneakers and head out. Then Newton’s Laws of Motion smack me in the face with a harsh dose of reality. Because man, it’s hard to get this body moving.

I’m a non-runner runner. What I mean is, I feel like deep down I’m a runner, but I don’t actually run. It’s like a club I’ve hoped to join my entire adulthood. I’ve attended a few meetings and I really like the other members. I feel like I could maybe belong.

I never had the privilege of being naturally athletic. I was shy and self-conscious as a child and I have always struggled with body image.  I tried softball once in middle school (turns out, it’s tough to have a softball career when you’re afraid of the ball.) I’m also hopelessly uncoordinated. But there was a period, eight glorious months sometime in my twenties, when I did run. It was the first time I ever felt physically capable and proud of my abilities. And then? I don’t know. It just dwindled. I’ve got a bunch of good excuses, but I’ll spare you. 

Still, I guess if there’s one thing I can say about me, it’s that I keep trying. And this time feels different.

Now that I’m in my thirties (early thirties), I’m starting to realize that time keeps steamrolling ahead. I keep asking myself lately, “If not now, when?” And I don’t have a satisfactory answer. That gets me moving. I’m also elated to discover that heading out for 30 precious minutes in the morning gets me away from my kids. I adore my children, aged three and four. But I have little patience for their “I want-I need-I don’t like that” morning chorus. I get to step out into a world of tweeting birds and 90s pop hits, leaving that chaos behind for my husband to sort out. It’s delightful even when running isn’t.

I’ve got some forces working against me; my pace is so slow I have to sprint to pass a walking elderly man. Before each run I feel fear, dread, and resistance. It’s uncomfortable to move this body of mine. But I don’t care.

Because the only cure for a bad case of the runs—is to run.

Meaghan O’Keeffe is a freelance writer. You can see her running/walking in Framingham, MA. If you blink, it’s ok because you won’t miss her. In fact, if you blink three times, you still won’t miss her.

By Sandeep Hazarika

Last week my colleague Karla talked about her tips for making time for exercise despite crazy family and work schedules.

I also face the same struggle as a parent: scheduling your life around kids’ homework, no school days, after school events, swimming lessons, and other activities is a huge challenge and it consumes you.  And on top of that, you also need to have a career.  So, how do I make time for exercise?

I think the right piece of technology could help fix this. Let me backtrack.

Growing up in a tropical climate, I spent my entire childhood being outside playing cricket, soccer, etc.  My parents didn’t own a car and I used to walk or use public transportation to go anywhere. No need for joining a gym or really scheduling exercise.  I moved to the US to attend graduate school and while in school, I still had the same active lifestyle as I’d when I was growing up.  This changed soon after I started working, as evidenced by the report of high cholesterol I received at a doctor’s appointment. I promptly joined an indoor soccer league through work to fix this. But now that I am a parent, having kids means you are bound to their schedules, and joining that work soccer league is no longer a possibility. 

I also happen to live in New England, where you are lucky if you get six months of ‘warm’ weather.  I either have to plan workouts around when it’s nice outside, or rely on a treadmill (but that’s not very motivating, especially when it’s tucked away in a musty basement.) 

We can’t control the weather, but we can certainly plan around it.  How?  Could a service like RunKeeper help someone like me?  I think it definitely could. 

Here is an interesting use case I personally encountered a couple of months ago:  I’d promised my youngest child that we would go to see Wreck-it Ralph on a particular Saturday afternoon this past February.  As we were driving towards the movie theatre, I realized that that it was an unusually nice day, so I asked my child if we could go on a bike ride instead and go to the movies later. The response I got back was: “But Daddy, you promised me that we are going to the movies now!” Yes, that was a fact and there was going to be no discussions around that - so we went to the movies instead.  By the time we got back, it was no longer nice and we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon and evening inside.  

Now consider this scenario:  RunKeeper provides me with a universal calendar where I store all of my activities and commitments in one place, without me having to juggle between multiple calendars.  And it just so happens that RunKeeper is also integrated with a weather app that provides timely in-app notifications about the weather.  Two days before that Saturday I was supposed to go to the movies with my youngest child, I could instead get an in-app notification from RunKeeper informing me that the weather is supposed to be nice (hallelujah!) and I should make plans to be active outside.  So, I start to negotiate with my child about switching the time for the movie and adding in a bike ride also.  Since I’m doing this in advance and not at the last minute, my probability of success goes up and we end up agreeing to going for a bike ride in the afternoon and then go to the movies in the evening.  Isn’t that just wonderful?

The product team at RunKeeper is always working hard to build great features, but this is the one I’m dreaming for. In the meantime, I have to step up my negotiation skills—not just with my child, but also with the RunKeeper product team!

What about you? What would help you get out there more? How do you plan workouts with family and busy schedules? 

 Sandeep is the chief data cruncher at RunKeeper and father of two school age kids

Consider this your first quarter progress report on how you all are doing this year with RunKeeper. Your grade? F—for freaking awesome! 

Together you’ve spent the equivalent of 177 decades working out from January to March (can you even wrap your head around that?) Those 8.4 billion calories burned stack up to about 58 million scoops of ice cream, and you completed some 3.1 million marathons between all those miles you ran, walked, biked, hiked, cross country skied (we’re talking to you, Sweden), and more. 

Speaking of Sweden, let’s congratulate them for their strong showing: two of the top five most popular cities on RunKeeper, and the No. 2 most popular country (again) in the first three months of this year! And big thanks to the Big Apple for getting a U.S. city to the top! 

Keep it up! At this rate you’re well on track to smash 2012’s numbers. 

We’re talking nutrition again today with the folks at InsideTracker. Read below for some common nutrient imbalances they see, and how you can find out how nourished you really are. 

By Perrin Braun, InsideTracker

If you could look under the hood to what’s going on inside of your body, you might be surprised by what you find. Many people—even elite professional and Olympic athletes—who seem “healthy” may actually have some biochemical issues that affect their performance.

We see this a lot at Inside Tracker.  We use a simple blood test to measure up to 20 blood biomarkers that can serve as a guide to your well being and athletic performance.

We’ve seen lots of blood, and in the process have come across some biomarkers that are out of range among a lot of our clients. We’ve listed them below, and included some information on what they mean for your health and performance, as well as how to restore the imbalances

Common imbalances

Vitamin D  and Calcium – Low levels of each of these can increase the risk of low bone mineral density and stress fractures. Vitamin D is essential for bone health because your body needs it to absorb calcium. It also regulates the development and maintenance of the nervous system and of skeletal muscle. Calcium plays an integral role in the growth, maintenance, and repair of bone tissue, maintenance of blood calcium levels, regulation of muscle contraction, nerve conduction, and normal blood clotting. Dairy products like milk, yogurt, and cheese are famous for being good sources of calcium, but you can also eat more leafy green vegetables (think kelp and spinach), dried beans, and legumes to improve your levels!  To improve your vitamin D levels, eat more fatty fish (such as sardines, mackerel, and salmon), egg yolks, butter, beef liver, cheese, and fish oil. Some foods, such as milk, yogurt, cereal, and orange juice, are now fortified with vitamin D, so be sure to check the label of your favorite foods to see if they contain vitamin D! 

Hemoglobin and Ferritin–Hemoglobin is a protein that is partially composed of iron and found mainly in red blood cells. Ferritin is a protein that stores iron, and therefore it is a good marker for the amount of iron in the body. Hemoglobin transfers oxygen to the muscles, brain and other organs, and helps the body to convert carbohydrates and fat into forms of energy. If you don’t have enough hemoglobin, your muscles will not get optimal amounts of oxygen and your body won’t use energy as efficiently when you run. Why might you be low in iron? During intense workouts, you lose iron through sweat, and runners also lose iron through gastrointestinal bleeding. Pre-menopausal female athletes are at an especially increased risk for low iron and hemoglobin levels because of blood losses during menstruation.  And many people simply don’t eat enough iron-rich foods, such as red meat, rice, wheat, oats, nuts, dark leafy greens, and beans.

Vitamin B12 – A quarter of InsideTracker customers found they had too much vitamin B12 in their blood. The body uses vitamin B12 to create new blood cells and to maintain its nervous system, but too much can cause symptoms like rashes, headache, nausea, and chest discomfort. You can find plenty of vitamin B₁₂ in animal products such as meat, eggs, cheese, shellfish, and also in some fortified breakfast cereals, so if you’re eating these foods, you probably have enough. It’s likely that InsideTracker customers and many athletes had high B12 from taking unnecessary multivitamins and vitamin B12 supplements, or consuming energy drinks that are extremely rich in vitamin B12.

Creatine kinase–Creatine kinase (CK) is an enzyme found primarily in muscle tissue. It is located only inside healthy muscle cells, and any presence in the blood means that muscle cells have been damaged and some or all of the content has leaked into the blood. Athletes who exercise when their levels of CK are very high are at risk of cramping during exercise and even serious injury. To repair muscle damage, your body needs protein, which is made up of amino acids, the building blocks for your muscles. You can find lean sources of protein in soy, chicken, beans, and legumes.

How can you get started with InsideTracker?

Of course, everyone’s blood is different. You may be experiencing some of these oddities yourself, but the best way to know is to get analyzed and tested. InsideTracker  uses what’s called an “optimal zone” in the blood analysis—a number that is specific to each person, taking into account his or her own unique demographic information such as age, gender, ethnicity, activity level, as well as lifestyle and performance goals. We determined the optimal zones for each marker based on the latest peer-reviewed scientific research. 

Once you’ve gotten your exact results, we help recommend a path toward improving them, through diet (we have a database of 7500 food items you can find in your local grocery store), supplements, or tweaks in exercise and training.

If you’re a RunKeeper user who’s living in the U.S., you can purchase an InsideTracker plan that includes a blood test, or you can take advantage of the “do it yourself” (DIY) plan, which allows you to enter your most recent blood tests results from your primary care physician. By improving your biomarkers, you can help to boost your endurance and speed! Who doesn’t want that?

Perrin is a nutrition and public health graduate student at Tufts University. In her spare time, she enjoys running, hot yoga, and thinking about her next meal.

By April Obey

There is  one piece of advice you won’t hear much after you go public with the exciting news that you’re going to be a mom. But listen to me now. Are you listening? If you’re planning on getting pregnant anytime soon, start running and using RunKeeper to keep your ass moving, today!

Luckily for me I had a short history of running before getting pregnant. Moving to Boston, meeting the love of my life, starting to run on the regular and using RunKeeper all happened in the spring of 2010.  I started running to impress Justin, the guy I had a crush on who turned into my husband. He introduced me to RunKeeper and without it, I definitely wouldn’t have turned into a runner.

Running, which is completely mental for me, quickly became a fun game of trying to beat my personal bests on RunKeeper. I was instantly addicted to improving my time and distance, mostly because it was made visible to my friends.   Having a place to track my distance, mileage, and overall pace each time I run kept me very aware of the shape my body was in. It also helped me focus on different parts of running, my overall pace for example, which I would have never known (or known about) if RK didn’t exist. 

I got pregnant shortly after getting married in 2012. In my first trimester of pregnancy, I felt like I had been hit by a truck on the daily. I was purely exhausted every single day, and one thing that kept me moving was running with RK. It kept me on track to run or walk at least 3 times a week. As my energy came back, I was getting bigger and my body really slowed down. But I never stopped moving no matter how exhausted and strained my body felt. I would use Runkeeper every time I walked the neighborhood. It gave me a sense of accomplishment since I didn’t have the sweat and racing heart rate to satisfy me.  I was walking a mile at a time with RunKeeper until about a week before I went into labor.

Thank god my body had been in such great shape before I delivered. By staying in shape during my pregnancy I had the endurance to withstand a 16 hour labor, followed by pushing for an hour and 15 minutes. Had I not been cognizant of the shape my body was in, I could have been a potential candidate for a c section.

As soon as I got the six-week clearance from the doctor, it was all systems go. I signed up for my second half marathon, bought a jogging stroller and started to mentally prepare myself to get back out there. I started out by walking a mile or two  a few times a week. I didn’t want to strain my body and I certainly didn’t have the energy to run yet. I just wanted to start incorporating fitness back into my daily routine. 

At about eight weeks I was ready to run and excited to get back on the wagon.  Though this time it was a lot different. I can’t just tie my shoes and go anymore. I now have to plan my runs out extensively so that Sienna is not screaming because she’s hungry or needs to be changed.  By using Runkeeper and knowing how long each run is going to take me, I can incorporate fitness back into my day more easily.

I recently subscribed to the RK Half Marathon training program by Jeff Gaudette. These training programs offer an easy way to mentally prepare myself to run each day and tell me exactly how many miles I need to accomplish.  I have so much to worry about now, as a new mom, RunKeeper makes it easy to get back into shape and shed those post baby pounds without a second thought.

InsideTracker is a Boston-area company provides blood analysis services and software to help you find the best food to fit your nutrition needs. We were excited to pick their brains on nutrition for us athletes and runners. Read on for their list of good recovery snacks, and the science behind them!

By Perrin Braun, InsideTracker

Healthful eating after a tough workout helps your body maximize the benefits that are gained from exercise, which means that you can get even stronger and faster just by eating right. The problem is, it can be hard to know what a good recovery snack looks like! 

Here are some ideas for healthy protein, carbohydrate, and fat, combinations to munch on after a workout: (We’ll get into the science behind all this further down).

• Peanut butter, honey, and banana on whole-grain bread
• Lean chicken with whole-wheat pasta
• Hummus and pita bread
• Dried fruit and nuts
• Tuna and wheat crackers
• Egg and cheese sandwich
• Greek yogurt with mixed berries

What happens to your body during exercise?

When you exercise, the muscle fibers in your body start to break down. Damaged muscle cells release an enzyme called Creatine Kinase (CK) into the blood. The level of CK in your blood shows how much your muscles and skeletal system have been worked during exercise.  If your blood levels of CK are high, pay close attention to what you’re eating after a workout. (The InsideTracker blood analysis can help measure your CK levels, as well as about 20 other important blood biomarkers that can give you better insight into what you should be eating.)

Plenty of carbohydrates after a workout are an absolute must.  Hard exercise causes the glycogen stores in your body to be depleted, so your body won’t have enough energy to begin the recovery/muscle growth process unless you refuel those stores. A post-workout meal or snack that is high in carbohydrates provides this essential fuel and gives your muscles time to build. Without that carbohydrate boost, your body will convert fat and protein from your muscle tissues to usable energy, which means that your recovery will take even longer. The ratio of carbohydrates to protein in your post-workout food should be high: 3:1 or 4:1.

To repair muscle damage, your body also needs protein, which is made up of amino acids, the building blocks for your muscles. An adequate supply of protein will help your muscles recover from all the stress that’s placed on them, especially after doing weight-bearing exercise, such as running.

Some athletes are afraid of fat, but cutting it out of your diet completely can actually hinder athletic performance. Fat helps provide fuel for the body. If your workouts typically last more than an hour, the body uses fats for energy after your glucose supply has been depleted. Pay attention to the type of fat you consume, though! Saturated and trans fats can be detrimental to your overall health, but essential fatty acids (found in fish and certain types of oils) play a critical role in muscle recovery by helping to regulate oxygen, hormone restoration, cardiovascular health, and immune system integrity.

And whole foods are ultimately the best source of this nutrition, giving you the nutrients you need while avoiding the processing and additives commonly found in post-workout supplements, like protein shakes and nutrition bars.  

Finally, you’ll also need to hydrate your body correctly in order to recover from a workout. Exercise causes your body to lose fluids and important vitamins and minerals, especially if you sweat a lot. However, if you’re a long-distance or endurance athlete and your workouts last more than 60 minutes, you may need more than just water to replenish your body’s fluids. Failing to replace sodium lost during extended exercise or on very hot days can have serious health consequences, so endurance athletes should make sure they replenish their bodies with 80 - 100 mg sodium per quart of liquid and 100 - 300 mg sodium per hour from other sources.

Sports drinks are one way to replenish your sodium. After you have been exercising intensely for an hour, drink about 20 ounces of a sports drink for each hour that you exercise. Choose your sports drink carefully; some brands are expensive and can also contain as much sugar as a can of soda! If you’re watching your wallet, but still enjoy the taste of sports drinks, you can make them at home for a small percentage of the cost. For instance, you can mix 100 milliliters of orange juice concentrate with 1 liter of water and a pinch (or 1/8 teaspoon) of salt. Supplementing your fluid intake with a handful of pretzels (which works out to about 10 small pretzels, or one serving) with salt can also work just as well.

Does that help? What’s your go-to workout recovery snack? And what areas of running nutrition do you still feel like you have big questions about? We’d love to answer them in future installments!  

 Perrin is a nutrition and public health graduate student at Tufts University. In her spare time, she enjoys running, hot yoga, and thinking about her next meal.

This winter has been on the more extreme side in Boston, so we recently put together this guide for keeping up your relationship with RunKeeper when temperatures have forced you inside. Take a look! 

You can still manually enter your indoor workouts into RunKeeper, and keep tabs on yourself over time.

To do this: 
1. Select manual entry as your activity input. 
2. Choose your activity type and gym equipment. 
3. Enter in your distance, duration, and time! 

Without fresh air and the change of scenery, indoor workouts can be, um, dull. So, some tips for spicing things up:
• Mix up your treadmill run with some speed intervals
• Work out with an audio book and get smarter while you get in shape
• Snag one of our partner apps, like WeightTraining or GAIN Fitness, to track those bench presses
• And because nothing keeps you on your toes like virtual zombies hunting you down, listen to Zombies, Run! using accelerometer tracking (thanks to RunKeeper user @wesbechtel for that suggestion)

The upside of this season is that it’s the perfect time to kick off a training regimen for that spring race! Some of our more popular training plans include Beginner to 5k and Running 4 Fat Loss (both are eight weeks long), or if you’re feeling extra daring, you could shoot for our Beginner Half Marathon to Finish plan (16 weeks long).

What about you? How do you keep workouts exciting indoors? We’d love your tips! 

(Want more of these insights in your inbox? You can opt in to our RunKeeper e-mails by selecting the account tab in your RunKeeper settings, and checking off the “Newsletter” box. )

We know that you’ve done some pretty amazing things with RunKeeper, but we wanted to paint the picture of the community as a whole!

Introducing the RunKeeper Community Rundown. This first volume digs into 2012, but you can expect more throughout this year that capture quarterly activity. 

So, take a look, soak in those numbers, and give yourselves serious high fives! Because 28.5 billion calories is more than 150 million slices of pizza. 

Oh, and let’s get Q1 2013 off to a running start, OK? We want to keep beating these records each year, right? 

Great job everyone! 

Name: Stephanie Empson
Location: Bellingham, WA
Starting/Current/Goal Weight: 277 pounds/220 pounds/140 pounds
Starting/Current A1C (3-month blood sugar avg): 8.5/5.3
Miles Tracked: 700
Calories Burned: 102,000+
Mission: To gain a healthier, more fit lifestyle.

I have had weight problems most of my life, but my latest journey started in April 8th 2012. It was a Friday and my boyfriend and I had plans to go to the drive-in, about an hour and a half away from our home.  I had not felt all that good for most of the day, but still wanted to go to the movies. So I never said anything to him about not feeling good.  I know I know—not a smart thing to do…

Let me give you a little background on me: I am an ex fire and rescue volunteer, I lost my job in 2009; I went to college for two years (really packed on the weight) and still had not found employment. I am also currently a CPR/First-Aid trainer, so you would think I would have made a better choice that day, but I didn’t.

My symptoms that day felt like they could be a cardiac event, so I monitored my pulse and took it easy most of the day. I had strange sensations in my chest and a feeling that my heart kept stopping and starting.

We watched two of the three movies, ate popcorn, hotdogs and other junk food and decided to head home.  As we got closer, I decided to go to emergency room.  

Upon arrival at the ER I was rushed to a room and was hooked up to various monitors.  Many hours later we were told it was not a cardiac event (much to our relief), but they asked if I knew that I was a diabetic, and I said no. My blood sugar was 360+ and my A1C (a three-month average of my blood sugars) was 8.5. A good reading is under 6.

The entire event scared me straight, so to speak. I started monitoring my foods and I got off my butt and started moving. My starting weight for this journey was 277 pounds.

I found two programs that I use without fail: RunKeeper to monitor my exercise and MyFitnessPal to monitor my eating. I had seen friends post their exercise on Facebook using RunKeeper and had used it some since January 2012, by some I mean VERY little.

I had recorded a whole 9.7 miles in January, 10.3 in February, and March took a total dive to a whopping 2 miles. Then there was the little trip to the ER and I ended April with 15.5 miles of walking.  In May, I got moving and walked 50 miles, and in June I had a total of 57.9 miles, between a little elliptical, cycling, and mostly walking.

At my three-month checkup in July, my A1C was down to 6.5 and I was down 25 pounds. (YES!!! all my hard work is paying off)

I continued to crank up the miles, and in September alone, I logged 124.9 miles. WOW!!!

That month I had my six-month check and my A1C is down to 5.4. (SWEET, this is working!!!) By this point, I had lost a total of 46 pounds.  My doctor took me off the blood pressure meds—success! Another three months and many more miles flew by, and on New Year’s Eve I had my nine-month check. My A1C is down to 5.3, and I am ecstatic that my hard work has totally paid off! I am down 57 pounds and can now ditch my diabetic medication.

So far, I have traveled 700 miles, burned more than 102,000 calories, and lost 57 pounds. I try to keep it to 1400 calories a day and try REALLY hard not to eat back calories I have burned during exercise, which RunKeeper and MyFitnessPal help me keep track of. Between these two programs I have improved my health, gotten in shape, lost weight and dropped five pant sizes. My current weight is 220 pounds. Who would have thought?

It is a new year and I still have a ways to go, and I am taking RunKeeper with me to the end and beyond.

Thank you for reading my journey.

Hi friends. We’re very sad to report to you that a very beloved and active RunKeeper user, Ron Gehring, passed away last weekend in a tragic cycling accident. Active doesn’t even do Ron justice—he was a RunKeeper animal, having biked 12,000 km last year alone, and on track to run in the Australian Running Festival this April.

And he built real, meaningful relationships with his RunKeeper friends, which you can clearly see on the Facebook page created in his memory. Many of these friends have been tagging him in their workouts and some have started a fund to help his family, here. 

We think that one of the more important things you can do in the wake of any tragedy is educate others to prevent similar misfortunes from happening in the future. So we wanted to take this time to reflect on some safety tips to take into account with your outdoor workouts. 

• Run with friends (or pets!) for strength in numbers
• Wear reflective clothing when running at night so you are visible on the road
• We love music just as much as the next runner, but headphones can be a big distraction. Be sure to keep the volume low enough to be aware of your surroundings.  
• Cross the street carefully at crosswalks, and make eye contact with drivers to ensure that they see you and have stopped.

For those dealing with the extreme cold we’re facing in the northern hemisphere: 
• Dress in moisture-wicking layers, which you can shed as you heat up throughout the workout. Be sure to cover all extremities with a hat, scarf, and thin pair of gloves. 
• Keep an eye out for icy patches and shorten your stride to reduce the risk of slipping  

What other workout safety tips can you share with the community? We’d love the hear them!