marathons

The first time I read that running can turn your toenails black or even make them fall off, I knew I'd found the limit to my dedication to the sport. I'll run through achey joints, sore muscles and most blisters, but toenails are sacrosanct, a permanent part of my body. Fortunately, mine have survived my handful of marathons entirely intact and properly colored.

Some, however, are being preempting the problem.

Editor Mike Haney is training for the New York City Marathon with all the help from high-end running tech he can get. Read his previous posts here.

Did you know that several of the NASA research centers scattered around the country keep lists on their Web sites of the technologies they have available to license and sell to the public? Neither did I, but that's why I'm not launching businesses like David Belaga is. He's the CEO of Wellness Brands, which plucked a beverage NASA developed to keep astronauts hydrated and just started selling it as The Right Stuff, a concentrate for elite athletes that want to separate their electrolyte intake from their carb intake (carbs in sports drinks typically being some form of sugar).

I consider myself more of an elite non-athlete, but on a few recent runs, I poured some Right Stuff vials into bottles of water to see if it helped keep my whistle wet.

Editor Mike Haney is training for the New York City Marathon with all the help from high-end running tech he can get. Read his previous posts here

I've prepared for my past four marathons with roughly the same plan: Run as little as possible. Now I'm old and out of shape, so to stand a chance at beating my last NYC Marathon time (3:27:45), I need a training scheme that seriously puts me to work. But I don't want to just mindlessly pound out miles -- if I'm donning the Dri-Fit, I better know why.

Everybody loves a photo-finish. But, what if you cant afford the camera? At prices that start around $25 thousand, high-speed cameras aren't practical for lower levels of racing. Now Hardcard Systems, in cooperation with Alien Technology, thinks they can lower the cost of electronic timing to just a few dollars per competitor—not with cheaper camera technology, but by shattering the speed limits on radio-frequency identification.