đ Are You Actually Ready for a Half?
Plus: How to Fuel Every Race
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Plenty of runners sign up for a half marathon and then wonder whether theyâve done enough to be ready. Since itâs such a common question, this weekâs main guide answers it, walking through the clear signs that show youâre prepared to run 13.1.
While youâre at it, donât miss our companion guide to race-day fueling, which breaks down what to eat and drink at every distance from the 5K to the ultra.
And stick around to the end for three stories worth your time, on the marathon wall, a record-breaking 50-state run, and a piece of Nike history.
Featured Reads
How to Know if Youâre Ready for a Half Marathon
A few things separate a runner whoâs ready for a half from one whoâs in for a rough day: enough weekly mileage, easy long runs, and tested gear. Miss a few and youâll feel it late in the race.
Hereâs the checklist to see where you stand before you reach the start line at 13.1.
How to Fuel for Race Day: From the 5K to the Ultramarathon
Water or gels? How many, and how often? The answer depends entirely on the distance. Hereâs a clear, distance-by-distance plan for fueling every race from the 5K to the ultra.
News
Men Are Twice as Likely to Hit the Wall at a Marathon
Scientific Reports has published a study of 873,334 Berlin Marathon finishers concluding that men hit the wall about twice as often as women. Across 27 years of results, roughly 18% of men faded badly after halfway, against 10% for women. The gap showed up in every race from 1999 to 2025, and since Berlin is flat and cool, heat and hills cannot explain it. The researchers call it a structural feature of how men run marathons.
So what drives it? Part of the answer is physiology. Women burn more fat at steady efforts and hold onto glycogen longer, and glycogen is the fuel that runs dry when the wall hits. The rest may be temperament, since men more often overestimate what they can do and go out too fast. Fitness offers no protection either. Even among sub-3-hour finishers, men blew up six times more often than women running the same times.
One caveat: the study counted only finishers, so runners who dropped out never entered the numbers, meaning the real rate is likely higher.
A Polish Runner Just Ran 50 Marathons in 49 Days Across All 50 States
Tomasz Sobania, a 27-year-old ultrarunner from Poland, has run a marathon in every US state in 49 straight days, breaking a record that had held for nearly 20 years. The previous mark of 50 days was set by American ultrarunner Dean Karnazes.
Sobania finished in Times Square on June 27, a day ahead of schedule, running two marathons in his final 24 hours to do it. He started May 10 at the Golden Gate Bridge and logged 26.2 miles (42.2 km) a day for seven weeks. Nicknamed the âPolish Forrest Gump,â he timed the run to the 250th anniversary of American independence.
A Handmade Nike Prototype From Bill Bowerman Just Hit the Auction Block at $250,000
Before Nike was Nike, it was one coach tinkering with shoes in Oregon. Bill Bowerman, the legendary University of Oregon track coach who co-founded the company and whose experiments with a waffle iron inspired Nikeâs famous waffle sole, built a pair of steeplechase spikes by hand around 1968. They are now up for sale at Sothebyâs with a starting bid of $250,000.
What makes them worth that much is timing. Bowerman made them before the brand even existed, when the company was still called Blue Ribbon Sports and the Nike name would not arrive until 1971. That makes them a piece of Nikeâs origin story from before the brand had a name. Bidding closes July 20.
Our top picks this week: