Running Facts

FACTS ABOUT RUNNING

hundreds of facts I could find, anything 

from records to things about cheetahs.  

We’re not going to talk about the cheetahs,  

you know they’re fast. But I am going to 

bring you four weird facts here in a minute.

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anything from like we’re doing today,  

weird facts, to things that can help 

you with your training, and more.

Now, let’s talk about the weird facts I found 

and there are some doozies in this list. But  

the first one is something that kind of stuck 

out in me because we’re always trying to look at  

what’s the best way we can be better, right? 

How do we be a faster runner? How do we be  

more efficient? Well, one of the things we do is 

we take energy gels, right? You’re going to go  

out for a really long run, you’re going to do 

your half-marathon/marathon, whatever you’re  

going to have to eat during it. So, we eat these 

energy gels of all varying kinds. And this has  

been going on for a long, long time. Much longer 

then the energy gel industry has been around.

Back in Victorian times, it was actually 

common or not uncommon for people to drink  

champagne as an energy drink. Now, this is, to 

me, ridiculous. First, champagne’s for winners,  

not at the starting line. But we didn’t know 

that then apparently, that alcohol is a diuretic,  

so it actually makes you dehydrated and does 

the opposite of performing well. So, my guess,  

if I had to make one is that it was probably 

more of the placebo effect where it’s like,  

champagne is for winners. So, 

I’m going to drink champagne, 

this is going to make me go 

fast, and that’s the rationale.

Now, I could be completely off base 

here, I didn’t live in Victorian times,  

clearly, as I’m alive right now. But this kind 

of idea and tradition is thought to go back to  

even Ancient Greece or China, where people 

have used things like cocaine and heroin as  

stimulants to improve their performance. So, know 

that we’ve been trying all kinds of different  

pills, potions, and powders for ages and ages 

to enhance our performance. So, if you do this,  

don’t take cocaine before a race, for multiple 

reasons. But know that you’re not alone if  

you’re trying to modify your performance. 

This is kind of a natural human tendency.

 

Morning is Best to Relax Mind And Running

Number two, and this is going to feel at home 

with me because this is something I deal with  

every single day on every single run, pretty much 

regardless of the weather, but you are with me,  

if you’re in this fact. 56% of people when 

they run outside, get runny noses.

 Now,  

I have allergies that affect me all the time, 

so I just happen to be one of those people that  

pretty much gets it nearly 100% of the time. 

So much that it was a running joke in college  

that if I accidentally spat on one of my teammates 

while I was out on a run, that it would give them  

magical powers to run faster. I appreciated their 

humor, I certainly didn’t do it on purpose. And it  

didn’t happen that often. But if you are with me, 

and you deal with sinus issues, it is terrible,  

terrible, terrible. 

And I know because of this 

fact that at least half of you or if we split  

you down the half, half of you are going to be in 

this group deals with this from time to time.

So, it just amazes me that over half, 56% of 

people deal with this. It kind of makes me wonder  

about evolution a little bit. How do we continue 

forward? Why aren’t we better than that? It makes  

I wonder if we could figure out how to get rid of 

the weakest and make the stronger people stronger.  

I don’t know. There’s some kind of joking here 

about the strong surviving and the weak don’t,  

and how mucus is going to attract people. I’m not 

quite sure what it is. I’ll get back to you on  

my career as a stand-up comedian. Or you can just 

hit subscribe and watch me fail at terrible jokes  

in real-time. In any case, if you’re with me, 

leave me a comment below. 

Let me know what do  

you do to deal with that? Or are you just doing 

the old snot rocket when you’re out on the run?

Number three. Okay. This one, guys. 

Okay. This one stuck out to me because  

I’m just imagining a bunch of guys 

sitting around in a lab trying to envision  

how do they take their passions and combine 

them into their job? And what they ended up with  

is, hey, let’s study the movement of 

women’s breasts while they’re running.  

How did this get approved by an IRB? How did this 

happen? Now, obviously, colloquially, culturally,  

we think about women’s breasts bouncing up and 

down when they run. Try not to stare. It’s not  

polite, even if it’s also been shown that 

it’s almost an unconscious tendency to look.  

So, maybe you’re off the hook a little 

bit, but don’t stare. It’s not right.

But at the University of Portsmouth, they actually 

found in this study, that women’s breasts don’t do  

an up and down movement, they make a figure-eight 

movement while they’re running. It still astounds  

me that this is a fact I get to present to you. 

How? Why? Why was this a thing? How does it help  

us? Does it help us? I don’t know. 

I talk to a lot of academic researchers on the Smart Athlete.  

 

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I just can’t imagine any of the people that I 

speak to, that are doing these very important  

projects that do things to affect us, both in 

athletics and beyond working on something of this  

nature. So, maybe I’m not lowbrow enough. But that 

is a weird fact. So, we’ll get on to number four.

My fourth and final fact for you 

today has to do with your heart.  

Now, we obviously know your heart 

is very important when we go run.  

But did you know that when you’re running, the 

amount of pressure that your heart is creating, if  

pierced, would have the ability to squirt your 

blood 30 feet? That’s a lot of pressure. That’s  

a lot of pressure. I’m just imagining 

something going horrifically wrong  

in a comics -- kind of a comics scene of Monty 

Python-type style episode. Somebody’s out running,  

and their heart bursting and squirting all over 

their companions as they’re running a marathon.

Obviously, the reality of that would 

be horrific. But at least in my mind,  

it’s more of a comedic scene. In any case, 

it’s a weird fact. Why do we know that?  

Again, who decided to calculate that? It’s 

these are weird facts I want to know about. 

So if you have more weird facts, like these, leave 

them down in the comments below. Share them with  

me, share them with your fellow runners. We want 

to know what weird facts about running can you  

find. As always, I’ll see you next time 

on the next Interesting  Facts

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