Sports Medicine PT Stefanie Bourassa #runHMF Chat Transcript

The Hartford Marathon Foundation just ran a helpful #askHMF Twitter chat at @RunHMF with senior sports med physical therapist Stefanie Bourassa. Learn about Stefanie and her team at Hartford HealthCare Rehabilitation Network on their blog.

Flexibility and core strengthening can help Piriformis Syndrome. -HHCRN #askHMF

— HMF Events (@RunHMF) May 28, 2015

Idiots rock

Thank you, Mary - a true leader in the field

By Mark | Last Sunday, I finished the Japan Run 4-miler at Central Park, and it was a familiar scene toward the end. I was in my fourth mile, running down West Drive past the Shakespeare Garden...and a woman was running by me and all runners in the opposite direction, shouting "Good job!" as she ran.

That was Mary Wittenberg as I will always remember her.

It was my 116th race. The first one was in December of 2006, when I was a quitting smoker wondering how I would do in a Joe Kleinerman 10K around the park. The race director said to us runners over the loudspeakers as she completed her pre-race remarks, "Start easy and finish hard."

That was Mary Wittenberg as I will always remember her.

Training for the Airbnb Brooklyn Half

By Rachel | Hi, everyone! As you may know I'm running the Airbnb BrooklynHalf on May 16 with Mark (@marathoner). I ran my first half marathon in The Hamptons last September (right) and the Staten Island Half two weeks later!

I originally had really big goals (for me) for this race and planned on following my New York Road Runners training plan religiously. I really wanted a sub-2-hour half. Unfortunately, right before my training plan started, I increased my mileage way too fast. Next thing I knew I had a plantar fascia strain and couldn't run for two weeks. After that I jumped right back into my plan like nothing happened. I then pulled my gluteus medius. I shouldn't have been so surprised, considering I was increasing my mileage way, way too fast!

New: ASICS GEL-Nimbus 17

Thanks to #TeamASICS for sending me these ASICS GEL-Nimbus 17s! Looking forward to breaking in these new rides as we train toward the Airbnb Brooklyn Half on May 16.

Race of the New Emoji

Green is the start line. Race of the Emoji from iOS 8.3. Ready, set, go.

 
We run together.

Andreas Lubitz Story: The Son, The Father, The Drive

In the interest of helping investigators discover the who and why after a tragedy and correcting a lot of mistakes I am finding in the media coverage, I started researching the running history of Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot who crashed the Germanwings airliner, and found a wealth of telling information about him. Running played a key and timely role in what reportedly became an ultimately fatal battle with mental health. I believe we can learn a lot about what made this overpronating, 7-pace enigma from Germany tick by looking at what he loved, and I hope that this research may prove useful in some way. I learned that he stopped running races for at least the past year, and per a runner comment below I think that could be telling; a person diagnosed with depression who sees running as an outlet might be greatly affected by no longer utilizing that outlet that had served him so well during the past half-decade. Based on feedback from other runners, I also feel this shines a light on the fact that a fair number of runners use this individual sport -- which is all about personal discovery, goal-setting, self-improvement, ambition and hopefulness -- to deal with depression and anxiety, and to a larger degree just the stress of everyday life.