What motivates you to go for a run?

Last month we asked "What is your favorite running book"?

And without further ado, you said:

Fox Cities Full/Half Marathon Summer Training Runs Begin Saturday June 1st

It won't be long! We will be beginning our popular training runs on Saturday June 1 at Crunch Fitness for the Community First Fox Cities Marathon and Half Marathon races held September 22, 2024. Every week there will be new routes for runners interested in either the Full or Half Marathon. The routes for this first week will be 8 miles for the Full and 4 miles for the Half. This is a good opportunity to steadily ramp up your miles throughout our summer program.

These runs are free and open to the public, so please invite your friends, family members and neighbors to attend with you. All ages, paces and experience levels are welcomed, you will surely find someone here to run or run/walk along with. And you will find many like-minded participants to openly discuss important nerdy things like shoes, cadence and gels. The routes will be mapped with turn by turn directions and will feature water and Gatorade stations. Afterwards there will be light snacks and on-site physical therapists from ThedaCare to help with your questions and provide stretches and advice to help you on your journey.

Crunch Fitness is located at 2500 S. Kensington Dr. Please come join us!

Mind Over Matter: Man breaks record for fastest barefoot half marathon run on snow/ice

Earlier this year 53-year old fitness fanatic Josef Salek of Czecia broke a World Record by completing a half marathon barefoot on a course covered with snow and ice in 1:50:42. He previously broke another World Record last year by holding an abdominal plank position for 9 hours 38 minutes and 47 seconds. That’s two interesting records indeed!

As Josef puts it, “Anything’s possible. That’s what I’m basing it on. It’s possible to be successful or unsuccessful. I used to be doubtful about success and that’s why I failed in many areas of my life. It was only a few years ago that I changed that to whatever I choose to be, I will be successful at it. I don’t dwell on doubts anymore, but if an obstacle occurs, I look for a way to move forward. Every obstacle allows us to be creative and be able to find ways to overcome it. And this attitude of life can liberate us from our greatest enemy, which is our doubts, fears and inner criticism of everything and everyone. In doing so, we take responsibility for our life and the way it makes us feel.”

Compression Therapy Treatment at Appleton YMCA

The Appleton Downtown YMCA is offering Compression Therapy. This is a treatment method that uses pulse massage patterns to boost recovery and improve performance. Benefits include:

Joan Benoit Samuelson, a shining star for over 45 years

There was a time, not that long ago, when women were a bit more hesitant to run. Joan Benoit Samuelson, a four-time Bellin Run champion, two-time Boston Marathon champion, Chicago Marathon champion, and the inaugural Summer Olympics Marathon women’s gold medalist in 1984, played a key role in changing that. Not long before she began competing in races, many critics claimed women were physically incapable of running long distances. She is the only woman in the world to have run sub-3 hour marathons across five consecutive decades, from 1979 to 2010. Her 2:21:21 marathon PR is still the 8th fastest ever by an American woman on a record-eligible course.

In 2010, at the age of 53, Joan missed qualifying for an 8th US Olympic Marathon Trials race by only 1:50, running a 2:47:50 at the Chicago Marathon where she had set the American Women’s record 25 years earlier. Between 2013 and 2015 she ran the Boston Marathon each year setting 3 of the 4 fastest times for the 55-59 age group. She ran Boston again in 2019 completing it in 3:04, winning the 60-64 age group by nearly 9 minutes, 40 years after her 1979 win there. Today she continues to shine as a runner. In 2022 she completed her fifth World Marathon Major and won her age group in the process, finishing the London Marathon in 3:20. Then in March 2024 in Tokyo, she completed her 6th World Marathon Major at the age of 66.