RunnersConnect Run to the Top Podcast

Have you ever trained hard for a race, paid the entry and travel fees, only to have a bad experience because the race wasn’t what you expected? Enter BibRave. Tim Murphy and his wife Jessica are both avid runners who founded BibRave back in 2011 with the desire to separate the good races from the bad so runners wouldn’t have to take chances. BibRave is an online running community that allows runne...

Sleep, stress, and dehydration can all raise or lower heart rate on any given day, which makes heart rate training less accurate than we’d like.   That’s why co-founder and lead engineer of Stryd Jamie Williamson decided it was time for a change.   With his business partner Li Shang and a team of like-minded “sports nuts”, Jamie set out to create the world’s first wearable power meter for running....

Ultrarunner, coach, and best-selling author Jenny Hadfield began running to lose weight, but, as many people do, she quickly fell in love with it.   However, one thing about the running world Jenny didn’t love was the formulaic, one-size-fits-all training plans that didn’t accommodate for busy lives.   She began working with runners to create training that fit their unique makeup as well as their...

“Nick Symmonds” has long been a household name in the running world. He is a two-time Olympian, six-time U.S. champion, the 2013 World Championship silver medalist, and the fourth-fastest American of all time in the 800 with a time of 1:42.95. He’s one of America’s best track athletes ever, and, at the age of 33, he’s retiring. Well, at least from the track. Nick’s passion for running and his rele...

Closing the Gap Between Who We Are and Who We Can Be - With Adam Goucher & Tim Catalano Adam Goucher & Tim Catalano met at the University of Colorado where they ran together under esteemed coach Mark Wetmore. It was there that a lasting friendship was born, and Tim and Adam later went on to pen a book on their combined experiences and studies. The book is called Running the Edge , and it is as muc...

Playing to Your Strengths with Esther Atkins When Skechers Performance athlete Esther Atkins realized she didn’t quite possess the genetics to become an 800 meter specialist, she set her sights on something different - and it’s lucky she did. One of America’s best marathoners today, Esther was the 2014 US Marathon champion and earned a spot on the World Championships Marathon team in 2015. With a...

Orthopaedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist Dr. David Geier has an enormous passion for helping athletes reach their maximum potential, and he believes a big part of that is simply learning from others’ mistakes. We runners often ride that line between just right and too much in training, and injury occurs when we go too far. This is the basis of David’s book That’s Gotta Hurt , which chron...

It was the hottest Boston Marathon in history.   Heat waves blurred the horizon as Jack and his competition toed the starting line, their uniforms already drenched in sweat. It was over 100 degrees, and spectators lined the course with sprinklers and garden hoses at the ready to cool off passing runners.   40 percent of the field dropped out that year, but, through smart racing and pure grit, Jack...

What if someone told you there is no “correct” stride? That, just like our fingerprints, everyone’s optimal stride is unique to them? While this goes against the grain of what we runners have been taught, Jonathan Beverly has the proof to back it up. The author of a new book called Your Best Stride, Jonathan is a coach, lifetime runner, and expert in running shoes and the running industry. He writ...

After LA native and trail runner Caitlin Landesberg discovered she was gluten intolerant, she felt left out when she could no longer partake in the ritual post-workout beer with her friends.   To most runners, this ritual is a familiar one and part of what makes the sport so gratifying. Kicking back with friends after a workout or a race and having a well-earned beer (or, ya know, maybe a few) is...

Cherie Gruenfeld exemplifies the ability to remain competitive regardless of age.   Much like many of our listeners, Cherie picked up endurance sports a little later in life - starting running in her early 40s and triathlons in her late 40s.   Now at the age of 73, she is one of the most heavily decorated Masters triathletes in the world and still competes in half Ironmans to this day.   In this e...

When ultramarathoner and running guru Danny Dreyer attended a tai chi class in 1999, a lightbulb went off.   He believed the martial art’s principles of alignment, relaxation, and balance might allow him to finally make the next leap in training, and he wasn’t disappointed.   After he began incorporating tai chi into his running, Danny not only witnessed dramatic improvements in his performance, b...

Most of us have been there. You’re in the thick of training just a few weeks away from your big goal race, and then one morning you step out of bed to feel a new pain - a pain far worse than the everyday soreness you know too well. *insert expletive* So what does the doctor prescribe? You guessed it. Time off. These two words are pretty much the last thing we runners want to hear after months and...

You know your body better than anyone else, so you know when things aren’t feeling “right”. Unfortunately, traditional healthcare doesn’t typically cater to runners. Reference ranges are determined without the athlete in mind, and when you express symptoms of fatigue, weight gain, or maybe IBS to the average practitioner, you’re often prescribed medication as a short term solution to a longterm pr...

Since Christopher McDougall popularized the practice in his 2009 publication of Born to Run , more and more runners have been opting for minimalist shoes or, ditching the foam altogether, barefoot running. Followers of the barefoot movement maintain the practice both significantly reduces injury and improves running performance. But is there real, scientific proof to back these claims? According t...

Stacy Sims - Fuel For What You’re Doing: Rethinking Fueling and Hydration   There are a lot of options for fueling and hydration products on the market. But beyond taste and marketing lies efficacy: is the product doing the job you need it to do when you need it to do it? There are also some misconceptions and myths that, while generally accepted, are not actually based in physiological fact. And...

Running podcast to motivate & help runners of every level run their best. Sinead Haughey interviews running influencers, scientists, psychologists, nutritionists, & everyday runners with inspiring stories.

Beet juice has become all the rage in the running world over the last few years, and for that we can thank Dr. Andrew Jones (aka @AndyBeetroot on Twitter).   With the help of his team at the University of Exeter, Andrew discovered beetroot’s natural performance enhancing benefits back in 2014 and continues exploring new ways for runners to fully capitalize on them. These benefits include a reducti...

Why Your Best Accomplishment Should Be Your Next One - Director of the Boston Marathon Dave McGillivray   Race director, philanthropist, motivational speaker, accomplished athlete - Dave McGillivray is a professional with a purpose. From his extraordinary run across the U.S. to benefit the Jimmy Fund and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 1978 to serving as technical director then race director of th...

  The Haywire Heart with Dr. John Mandrola, Lennard Zinn, and Chris Case It’s been said that if a little does a good job, then a lot is even better and too much is probably just right. However, evidence indicates that too much exercise, like that experienced by years of endurance sports, can lead to what is known as “athlete’s heart” - a host of conditions easy for physicians to misdiagnose. In th...

Fare Thee Well, Tina Muir - Welcome, Sinead Haughey This is a bittersweet episode, to be sure, for today we bid the fondest of farewells to our host for the last 2 years, Tina Muir, and introduce the new host for Run To The Top, Sinead Haughey. Most recently, Sinead was the Director of Premium for RunnersConnect having been a 2-time NCAA Championship qualifier in the 10K at Furman University. Sine...

Wait... What??  That’s correct. 1972 Olympian, Jeff Galloway, who was self-coached and absorbed as much as he could from other runners has proven that to go fast, you should go slow. Hundreds of thousands of runners have trained with his method and the results he shares in this episode are nothing short of amazing. Since starting his retail store, Phidippides, in Atlanta, Georgia in 1975, Jeff has...

Mary Wittenberg & Virgin Sport - Social Movement  As CEO of the New York Road Runners from 2005 to 2015, and having been involved with them since 1998, Mary Wittenberg helped the NY Marathon grow to include 400,000 participants, including 120,000 school children across multiple events and helped found the World Marathon Majors which connected the marathons in Boston, Berlin, London, Chicago and Ne...

Collegiate, post-collegiate & non-collegiate running with Michael Hammond Michael Hammond is a graduate of Virginia Tech where he competed in cross country and track, earning two ACC titles and four NCAA All-American honors. His individual efforts led his team to four ACC team championships: one in cross country, two in indoor track, and one in outdoor track. So, how could a runner with such an im...

Running can be tough, not just on our bodies, but on our emotions and psyche.  This is especially true whenever we experience any perceived setback; injuries, a rough workout or a less than desired performance in a race.  We all talk to ourselves, whether we’re aware of it or not, but many people don’t realize that this self-talk actually affects our performance. This is both good and bad, dependi...