The beer mile comes of age
The beer mile, once a rogue race to see who not only had the strongest legs and lungs but also stomachs, has gone mainstream. As Todd Balf documents in his feature for Outside (http://bit.ly/12BjUpW) the beer mile owes its popularity to – what else? – social media. After one runner posted a video that garnered over a million hits, everyone wanted to run and ralph. Incidentally, the modern beer mile has its roots in Canada. Balf notes that it was a cross-country team at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario who set the rules which today govern the event and which are known as the Kingston rules. 
These shoes will make you fly
We’ve seen all kinds of nifty shoes in the last decade, including several attempts to employ various propulsion devices to make runners faster. Hello? Did someone just say Adidas Springblades? Now a US$180 shoe called the Ambla Fly offers a carbon fibre hinged sole that is supposed to provide that extra bit of push to get you to the finish line that much faster…supposedly. Deadspin (http://bit.ly/15XWQnM) a good deal of fun mocking the science behind the shoe, but they’ll regret their hubris once they see top marathoners like Meb running in the Ambla Fly…or not.
Coolsaet on cool weather running
The Weather Network, that long-time purveyor of running news, interviews Reid Coolsaet about winter running (http://bit.ly/1y8cAjJ). You’ll learn nothing you already didn’t know, but get to see a couple of cool clips of Coolsaet running. What? You wanted more? This isn’t Running Competitor.com (http://bit.ly/1jw3QbZ), you know.
Shoes. That’s all
Speaking of Running Competitor (http://bit.ly/1jw3QbZ), they’ve got the goods on 25 new shoes for spring and summer 2015. Oh, I know that seems endless months away – it’s not even Christmas, for Pete’s sakes! But I also know you can’t help yourself and you’ll look at each and every pair and analyze and parse them every which way. Overall, the trail offerings look more interesting than the road shoes. But wait! Look! There’s the Ambla Fly! You’d better rush out and grab a pair of those puppies now.
Sub-three 