For me, the holidays aren’t just about childhood memories, shopping (which I hate to do), and carols. They’re also about food. Specifically, the food others give me. It seems that ’tis the season to give Jason Karp lots of cookies. This Christmas, like all other Christmases, people push their cookies on me, not letting me […]
Just got back from an hour run on the other side of the International Date Line. September starts with a trip to southeast Asia—Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia. First stop: Jakarta, Indonesia to speak at the Indonesia Fitness and Health Expo. Looks like someone is sleeping on the job. Airport security is not like it is […]
Whether you want to run around the block or qualify for the Boston Marathon, how you train can have a dramatic effect on your performance. While running just to run will certainly make you fitter, understanding all of the training components and putting them together in a systematic training plan gives you the blueprint for […]
Years ago, I applied to be a personal trainer in a gym. Taking one look at my runner’s body, the owner said to me, “Go work out for a couple of months and come back to reapply.” Happy as I was with my runner’s body, I never went back. But it occurred to me that […]
Muscles are the most accessible way we have to see what our workouts do to our bodies. However, despite how many compliments you get from your Instagram pictures taken following your workouts, what matters is not what your muscles look like, but what they can do. In the early days, it was the strength […]
I ran my first track race tonight since January, when I was diagnosed with blood clots in my legs and lungs. I spent most of the day anxious about it, because I wanted to get this race over with and get through it without any problems. I went to the bathroom about six times today […]
Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s only fitting to talk about my favorite body part on Valentine’s Day—the heart. From the time we’re teenagers scribbling cartoon hearts on our notebooks, we use the heart as a symbol of love. But it is also the most extraordinary muscle of our body. It is always working, from before we […]
On my 10-mile run today, I thought about distractions. Life is full of distractions that divert our attention away from what we’re doing and what we want to accomplish. Most situations that come up during the day are distractions. Even as I sit writing this paragraph in a coffee shop after my run, there […]
As I discussed in a recent blog post, and is worth reiterating here, runners literally have large hearts–specifically, the size of the left ventricle, a condition called left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). If you’ve ever had an EKG, you can see whether you have LVH: See the two biggest points on the EKG–one pointing up […]
Most people who know me know how passionate I am about running. As passionate as I am about running, I am even more passionate about the Olympics. I admit, I always cry during the Opening Ceremonies. I love the ceremony of it all, the symbolism of the Olympic Rings, the convergence of the very best […]