Runners often swear by the 80/20 rule for organizing their training—but this is no relation to the Pareto principle of the same name. Let’s talk about where the 80/20 idea comes from, how to implement it, and when it is and isn’t a good idea to train this way.
What is the 80/20 rule for running?
Briefly, it’s the idea that 80% of your running should be low intensity, and only 20% at medium or high intensity. Recreational runners (like you and me) often run closer to a 50/50 split. The 80/20 rule suggests that we should take some of those faster runs and slow them the heck down to reach a better training balance.
The 80/20 rule was popularized in a 2014 book, 80/20 Running, by Matt Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald, in turn, based his recommendations off research by Stephen Seiler, who found that elite athletes in a variety of endurance sports, including running, cycling, and cross-country skiing, did about 80% of their training sessions at intensities much lower than they would ever use in racing. In other words: To train your body to go fast, you have to log a lot of miles going slow. This is similar to the idea of “polarized training,” which means that you stick to the extremes—either working very easy, or very hard, rather than spending much time in the in-between.
Note that 80/20 here only refers to how you split up your training: 80% easy versus 20% hard. This is not the Pareto principle, which states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your…whatever. (80% of sales coming from 20% of customers, 80% of your needs met by 20% of the stuff you own, etc.) In running, there is only really one result—your race time—so the question is just how to split up your training time. 80% easy and 20% hard is the balance that, Fitzgerald and Seidler would argue, will get you the best race times.
What counts as low intensity for the 80%?
If you’ve been paying attention to the “zone 2” trend, you’re probably thinking you should be in zone 2 (arguably 60-70% of your max heart rate) for 80% of your training. And you know what? That will get you close enough. Go with it.
But the definitions more often used in the scientific research aren’t based on heart rate alone. Some of them use metrics we can’t easily measure on our own—go ahead, try to keep your blood lactate below 2 millimoles per liter.
What’s more useful—and still borne out by research—is to use VT1, the “first ventilatory threshold.” That’s a fancy word for what old heads will know as the “talk test.” If you can carry on a conversation without taking extra breaths mid-sentence, you’re below VT1. That’s what 80% of your training should feel like.
I know that’s not enough information for the more data-minded among you, so I’ll note that Fitzgerald reported in his book that this level is often found around 77% to 79% of elites’ max heart rate. The exact number might vary from person to person, and heart rate numbers are never totally objective, since they can be affected by heat and stress among other things. But as a gut check, 77% of my own known, tested max puts me around 153, which matches shockingly well to what I consider my easy pace—I try to stay in the low 150’s for my easy runs.
Taking this information together, it turns out we can go a bit higher than “zone 2” and still be at the right intensity for the 80% part of our 80/20 running—as long as it truly feels easy. If you’d like, you could customize your zones on your running watch so that you have a zone that tops out at 77% or so. (It might even make more sense for that to be zone 3 rather than zone 2.)
How to train with the 80/20 rule
Before we can divvy up our training, we need to decide how we’re measuring our training. Are we aiming for easy runs to be 80% of our training sessions? 80% of our miles? 80% of our total training time?
Fitzgerald, in his book, counted up minutes in easy, moderate, and hard intensity levels. But if you’re doing an interval run, he counted the intervals and the recovery between them as part of your harder intensity work. (A cooldown after those intervals would count as low intensity, though.)
So you can do the same. It would also get you in the right ballpark to think in terms of miles or sessions. If you do one hard run for every four easy runs, you’re still doing 80/20 (as long as those runs are roughly similar in mileage).
How important is it to stick to the 80/20 rule?
Even though it’s called a “rule,” this isn’t a thing you have to follow. It’s just one way of training that matches what a lot of elite athletes do. There has also been research showing that recreational runners can benefit—but that doesn’t mean it’s the only way to train.
Seidler, the researcher, even told Fitzgerald, the author, that if he could only train twice a week, he’d do a mix of harder and easier work in both sessions. Research on competitive recreational runners found that a 77/23 split and a 46/54 split both resulted in small improvements to 10K time, and the difference between groups was not statistically significant. That said, these folks had 10K times (that’s a 6.2-mile race) under 40 minutes to start, so they were pretty fast to start with, compared to a lot of beginner runners.
Meanwhile, there’s plenty of other research showing that casual runners can improve with almost any type of training, and that increasing your total mileage (measured in miles per week) is helpful for improving your fitness and your race times.
The bottom line
If you’re a runner with lots of room for improvement—which covers many of us beginner, intermediate, and casual runners—you don’t necessarily have to slow down 80% of your runs to a crawl. You can use any conversational pace that works for you, even if your watch says that’s zone 3. And since increasing mileage is usually part of improving as a runner, it may make more sense to think about adding easy miles, rather than turning your hard miles into easy ones.
Peloton bikes are best known for their video classes, which feature a social leaderboard, chatty instructors, and handpicked music. But from a fitness perspective, my favorite feature is “power zone” training, which you can do with specific classes or enable the power zone bar for any workout. Let me tell you why I love it, and how you can get started with it, too.
What is power zone training?
Cyclists measure their effort in terms of power: how much energy you transmit through the pedals in a given length of time. It’s often measured in watts. On an outdoor bike, you need a power meter to measure this; on Peloton, this measurement is built in. (The Bike estimates your power; the Bike+ has a true power meter. Both work just fine for everything I’m discussing today.)
Power zones are personalized to you—in a minute we’ll talk about how—and there are seven zones. If you’re familiar with the output metric (the number in the middle of your screen), your output is what determines your zone. Higher output numbers fall into higher zones.
A power zone workout (or “ride,” as Peloton calls them) will tell you when to go into each zone. Unlike other Peloton classes, instructors leading power zone rides won’t tell you what resistance to use, and they may recommend a cadence, but you’re never required to hit it. So if you’re in zone 1 and the instructor tells you to pedal in zone 3, you can choose to increase your resistance, your cadence, or both—whatever gets you there.
To be totally clear, power zones are nothing to do with heart rate zones. We’ll talk about the difference a little bit later.
Why are power zone rides special?
Since power zones are calibrated to your personal abilities, you always have a scale that tells you how hard you’re working, relative to what you are capable of. I like power zone rides because I know what kind of training effect to expect from them.
Where a “classic rock ride” could be hard, easy, or anywhere in between, I know that a “power zone endurance” ride is going to keep me in zones 2 and 3 for most of the workout, training my stamina without making me too fatigued. On the other hand, a “power zone max” ride will have me working hard, like a HIIT workout. The difference is that I know from the power zone bar on my screen exactly when I’m hitting the ideal output for the workout that I’m doing—not too hard and not too easy.
In short, other rides are great for having fun or for letting yourself be surprised. Power zone rides are for training. If you want to get faster and better on the bike, these are structured workouts that will make that happen, and give you ways to measure your improvement.
What is a power zone ride like?
When you want to do a power zone ride, your first job is to decide which kind. You can filter classes by “power zone” as a type, but within that you’ll see three types of classes:
Power zone (PZ): With these you’ll spend most of your working time in zones 3, 4, and 5, with recoveries in zone 1 or 2 in between efforts. These tend to be pretty hard workouts, but they’re usually not too intense.
Power zone max (PZM): These rides will take you into the higher zones (6 and 7) with easy recoveries, usually in zone 1.
Power zone endurance (PZE): These rides almost always keep you in zones 2 and 3 the whole time. Your effort will be moderate but steady.
The shortest power zone rides are usually 30 minutes (there may be a few 20-minute rides in the catalog). The 45-minute rides are probably the most popular, but there are plenty of 60-minute rides and a few 75- and 90-minute PZE rides.
Credit: Peloton
All power zone rides start with a warmup that is usually between 10 and 13 minutes. A typical one goes like this:
A few minutes (usually one song’s worth) of pedaling in zone 1 to let your legs start to warm up.
Spin-ups, where you move your legs as fast as you comfortably can, for maybe 30 seconds at a time. Your exact zone doesn’t matter here. In between the spin-ups, you’ll pedal in zone 1 to recover. After three to five spin-ups, with maybe 30 seconds or a minute in between, it will be time for the next phase.
A “build” with 30 to 90 seconds in each of the zones you’ll be using in the workout. For a PZE that might be 90 seconds in zone 2 and 90 seconds in zone 3. For a PZM, you might get 30 seconds each in zones 3, 4, 5, and 6.
A short recovery (usually 1 minute) of zone 1 pedaling before the main workout begins.
Instructors will get creative with the details, but will always keep the structure of a zone 1 segment, a few spin-ups, and a build. During the warmup, they will usually explain the structure of the workout to come.
To see the structure of the workout before you start the class, you can tap “class plan” in the ride description, then “view details,” and you’ll be able to see the full breakdown. (Some older classes don’t have this information, but ones from the last year or two will always have it.) The plan will show you what zone each interval is in, and how many minutes you’ll spend there. In the example here, you’ll spend 3, 5, 7, and then 5 minutes in zone 3, with shorter recoveries in zone 2. This is pretty typical for a PZE class.
Why you’ll love the power zone bar
Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Peloton
Anybody can take a power zone class at any time, but if you haven’t set up your power zone bar, you won’t know exactly when you’re in the right zone. (Go ahead and take the class anyway, though. During the build, the instructor will explain what each zone should feel like. You can do your first ride or two by feel.)
The power zone bar is a color-coded line at the bottom of your screen underneath your output. The zones will fill in with color according to your output, so that when you’re in zone 1, you’ll just see the leftmost blue chunk lit up, and when you’re in zone 7, you’ll see the whole rainbow, with zone 7 in red to let you know that’s where you are. Power zone classes released after November of 2022 have an indicator outline around the zone you’re supposed to be in, so even if you missed the instructor calling out the zone, you’ll see on your screen what zone you should be in.
When you set up your power zone bar—more on that in a sec—you’ll get the option to show it all the time, instead of just in power zone classes. I highly recommend doing this. With the power zone bar, you can use the idea of power zone training when you’re doing a scenic ride, and you can see how traditional style classes compare to your own zones. If I want to take a music ride for fun, but stick to easy training, I’ll just make sure my output stays in zone 2 or 3. With the power zone bar enabled, it’s easy to do that.
How to set up your power zones on Peloton
Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Peloton
If you know what the term “FTP” means (hello, cyclists), you can go into your settings right now and turn on the power zone bar. It’s in your profile, under Preferences. At the bottom of the screen, find the FTP section, and tap “calculate custom value.” You can enter your FTP number there.
For the rest of us, though, you’ll want to take an FTP test. Well, you might not want to, but you kind of need to, to calibrate everything properly.
How to take an FTP test
Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Peloton
FTP stands for Functional Threshold Power, and it’s a measure of how high an output you can sustain over time. There are specific Peloton rides that are designed to measure your FTP. After you do one, you’ll get a prompt asking if you’d like to update your FTP in settings. (Say yes.)
The FTP test takes 20 minutes, but I like to budget an hour. That gives you 10 to 20 minutes for a warmup, 20 minutes for the test, 5 to 15 minutes for a cooldown, and then plenty of time to lie on the floor afterward. (Pro tip: Have someone bring you a fresh, cold bottle of water when you finish.)
People get nervous about the FTP, but it’s really just a benchmark of where your fitness stands at the moment. If you do it right, you’ll be exhausted at the end, but then you’ll know your FTP—which means you can take easy rides and know they will be easy, because they’ll be calibrated to you.
I’ve taken a few FTP tests. Here are my tips:
Schedule a time, and when the time comes, hop on the bike and do it. If you are the type of person to get nervous when a test is on your calendar for a future date, just do it now. I’m serious, turn on your bike right this second and get it over with. You can read the rest of this article when you’re done.
Do an FTP warmup ride. Some are 10 minutes, some are 15. I find that longer is better; sometimes I’ll do a 10 minute warmup twice. Pick your favorite, most encouraging instructor for the warmup.
After the warmup, take a quick minute for a water break if you need it, and then go right into the FTP test. It does not matter who the instructor is; you’ll barely notice them. Mute the screen and play your own music if the music matters to you.
Start at a strong, steady pace, something you’re confident you could keep up for 20+ minutes. Every five minutes, ask yourself if you could kick up the intensity a notch and still be able to hang on. If you have a 20-minute PR already in the system (whether a previous FTP test or another ride), filter the leaderboard to “just me” and try to beat yourself.
Anytime you feel like you can’t possibly continue, slow down a little but do not stop. Use this as your new steady pace, and get back to asking yourself every few minutes whether you could increase your output or if you need to stay where you are. Better to go out too fast, slow down, and then continue to the finish, than to quit halfway through and…then what? Do it all over again? No way.
No matter your fitness level, there is some amount of power that you can log in a 20-minute test. If you don’t like the number you get, you can retest in a couple weeks. But you won’t know what number that is until the end. So don’t quit. Keep pedaling. You can absolutely do this.
Whatever minute you’re in, don’t focus on how many minutes there are left. Just focus on making it through this minute.
Before you know it, you’ll be in your final sprint to the finish. The ride will end, and at this point I usually snap a photo with my phone of my output on the leaderboard. When you leave the ride to do a cooldown (please do a cooldown, your body will thank you), Peloton will ask if you’d like to update your FTP. Say yes. By the way: It’s recommended to take a new FTP test every 4 to 6 weeks.
Heart rate zones vs. power zones
I need to make something very clear: When you’re training with power zones, those are to be used instead of heart rate zones. Not in addition.
Now, you can still wear a heart rate monitor. That’s fine. You’re just not using it to guide your workout. You’ll see the power zone bar at the bottom of your screen, and a heart rate zone indicator at the top left. Either ignore or hide the heart rate zone indicator. You can tap the little sideways arrow and it will disappear, but keep logging your heart rate data so you can look at it later.
Note the heart rate zones in the top left, and power zones at the bottom. At the moment, both are in zone 1.Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Peloton
People often wonder how heart rate zones match up with power zones, but there is no consistent way to convert them. In general, heart rate zone 2 matches power zones 2-3. But your heart rate drifts upward the longer you work out, and your heart rate also takes longer to change when you shift gears. If you’re moving into power zone 5, your bike will be at zone 5 immediately. Your heart might take 30 seconds to catch up. Don’t ever worry if your heart rate zones and power zones aren’t matched, OK? You can only train with one at a time, and we’re here to train with power zones.
What kind of power zone workouts should I do?
When you first start, the easiest way to learn your way around power zone workouts is to do the Discover Your Power Zones program (available from the “Programs” section on the Bike/Bike+). It will guide you through doing an FTP test at the beginning and at the end of the four-week program, and in between you’ll get a sampler of all the different power zone workout types. The instructors know they’re talking to power zone beginners, so they’ll spend plenty of time explaining how everything works and giving you tips on making the most of it.
When you’re done with that program, you may want to take Build Your Power Zones to continue working in that same vein, but it’s also fine to just start taking whichever power zone classes you think you’ll enjoy. Eventually you may want to take Peak Your Power Zones, a more advanced program that is geared toward improving your FTP. (Your FTP will improve no matter which program you take, but the “Peaking” program is laser-focused on making that number go up rather than delivering a well-rounded fitness program.)
Besides those three built-in programs, you can also find program suggestions on Reddit (there is a #RedditPZ group that runs nine-week programs) and a Facebook-based Power Zone Pack that runs challenges for subscribers.
But if you’re on your own, you can build your own routine just by knowing what to expect from each type of power zone workout. For most people, it would work to do:
0 or 1 Power Zone Max ride(s) per week
1 or 2 Power Zone ride(s) per week
Power Zone Endurance rides for the rest of your available time (or do other rides while staying in zone 2-3 on the power zone bar)
So if you ride three times each week, you might do one PZ and two PZE. If you’re a monster who rides every day, you might do one PZM, two PZ’s, and four PZEs, with one or two of those PZE rides being all zone 2 (instead of following the callouts to switch between zones 2 and 3). Adjust as needed to your own fitness level, and choose the lengths of workouts that work for your schedule.
When choosing your own workouts, the Power Zone Tool from homefitnessbuddy.com is incredibly useful. You can filter and sort by instructor, length of workout, and a cool metric called TSS (training stress score). The higher the TSS, the harder the workout will be to recover from. (For example, you can search for “Christine PZE” and sort by TSS, lowest first. You’ll immediately see that she has several rides that are 30 minutes long and that are entirely in zone 2—great for a recovery ride.)
You can also get a preview of the zones as a visual chart, which I find easier to read than the way Peloton presents them in the class plan. Be aware that the very newest rides won’t be on this tool yet, but also that some older rides will be on there as well that may not have the power zone indicator. But fortunately all the statistics are right there in each entry, so you can choose exactly which rides you’d like to take.
Once you start squatting serious weight, you may look around and realize that other people wear something on their knees. Sometimes it’s a strip of elastic that wraps around like a bandage, but more often they’re wearing knee sleeves, often made of neoprene. Do you need them? And if so, when? Let’s discuss, and then I’ll give my recommendations for which knee sleeves to start with.
The difference between knee sleeves and knee wraps
Before we get into the details of sleeves, I want to point out a distinction. There are knee sleeves, which we’re talking about today, and then there are knee wraps. The main distinction is that knee wraps help you lift more, while knee sleeves are for comfort. (And in case you were wondering: neither one will prevent injury.)
Knee wraps look like this, literally an elastic bandage you wrap around each knee. Their purpose is to tightly compress your knee when you squat, so that they can provide assistance as you stand up. They may be wrapped tight enough that you can only keep them on for a minute or two; the instant you finish your set of squats, you’ll take them off..
In powerlifting, there is an “equipped” division that uses specially engineered, tight fitting clothing (bench shirts, squat suits) that is designed to help you lift more than if you were just using your plain ol’ body. Tight, thick knee wraps are used for squats in the equipped division. (Here is an example of some serious knee wraps; note that they don’t have the velcro tabs seen on a lot of mass-market knee sleeves.) In “raw” divisions, where assistive clothing isn’t allowed, knee wraps are usually not allowed either. People can often squat 5-10% more with wraps than without.
Knee sleeves, on the other hand, look like this. They are cylindrical pieces of neoprene (or sometimes fabric) that you slide your legs into—hence the term “sleeve.” They don’t provide much, if any, assistance with the lift. It’s normal to put on your knee sleeves at the start of a workout, and leave them on until it’s time to head home. Knee sleeves are usually allowed in raw powerlifting.
There are knee sleeves that may provide some assistance, but nearly all of the knee sleeves on the market are neoprene or light fabric. Those are the main type we’ll be talking about today, but I’ll throw in some information about possibly-assistive sleeves later in this article.
What do neoprene knee sleeves do?
As a new lifter, I asked everyone about knee sleeves. What do they do for you? When did you get them and why? The answers were always kind of vague: “if you need them, you’ll know” or “I don’t know, I’ve just always used them.”
I finally gave in and bought a pair just to find out. I had had a minor knee ache that I would sometimes feel at the bottom of deep squats. The first time I did snatches (which involve a deep squat) in knee sleeves, I was floored. That ache was just gone. That’s what knee sleeves are for. They make your knees feel good!
Most lifters will agree with that statement, but some will also say that wearing very tight knee sleeves can provide some assistance in the lift. Research doesn’t bear that out, though. This 2021 study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research compared neoprene knee sleeves to a control sleeve (thin fabric) and to a sized-down, tighter neoprene sleeve. They found that neoprene sleeves don’t help you jump higher or lift any more weight on the leg extension machine, but people wearing the sleeves did squat slightly more—an average of 354 pounds for people wearing the control sleeves, versus 365 pounds for people wearing either normal or extra-tight neoprene sleeves.
The authors conclude that sleeves seem to be doing something for people who wear them, but it doesn’t seem to be any kind of direct mechanical assistance. The main theories are that knee sleeves:
Keep your knees warm
Provide some cushioning behind your knee when your knee is bent, which can reduce pressure on the front of your knee
Increase subjective feelings like confidence
Of the three, I’m most partial to the cushioning theory, but officially the jury is still out. Interestingly, the study did not find any difference between regular or tight sleeves. If you want mechanical assistance in your squat, you’ll have to upgrade to wraps.
The best neoprene knee sleeves for comfort
The main thing to look for is 7-millimeter neoprene. These are the standard thing that people are thinking of when they talk about knee sleeves. These are not drugstore knee braces. You're not looking for anything with straps, or a kneecap hole. They are simply a neoprene sleeve to slip your knee into.
There don’t seem to be many factors that make one pair of 7mm knee sleeves better than another. Some brands say their neoprene is thicker or more durable than others; you might also have a preference in shape, since some are more contoured and others are straighter in shape.
Aside from preferences, there is one more important factor: If you intend to compete in a sport like powerlifting, you may need to buy a brand that is approved by the federation you compete in, and/or check whether it meets any other requirements. (USA Weightlifting doesn’t have strict requirements on sleeves, so pretty much any brand is good if you’re a weightlifter.)
When shopping, make sure to find out whether the sleeves you’re looking at are sold in pairs or singles. If one brand is $55 for a pair, and another is $55 for a single, they may look the same on paper but one costs twice as much as the other. Here are three popular brands:
There are other knee sleeves in the world. There are thin, stretchy fabric ones; they won't do much for you, but enjoy them if they're your kind of thing. There are also 5-millimeter sleeves that are the same basic idea as the ones in the list above, but are a bit thinner. (I would start with the 7mm, but if for some reason you don't like the thickness, go ahead and try 5mm.) Finally, there are various types of sleeves that some lifters will swear really do assist in the lift. We don't have solid evidence about whether those claims are true, and if you want to go that route, I'd still suggest getting yourself a pair of regular knee sleeves first. You can worry about the fancy stuff later.
As for myself, I have a pair of Norse Fitness 7mm neoprene sleeves, similar to the Gymreapers above, and they’re fine. I wear knee wraps on most of my back squats, and 1kilo 3-ply sleeves for cleans and front squats. They aren’t neoprene, and I do believe they assist in the lift at least a little. But in general, when people ask me to recommend a first knee sleeve, I steer them toward 7mm neoprene like the ones in the list above.
In our tour of running apps (see my reviews of Runna and Nike Run Club), I’ve been focusing on apps that are geared specifically toward runners. But there are some general fitness apps that are also for runners, and it’s time we talked about one of the big ones—the Peloton app. If you’re deep into the Peloton ecosystem, this is likely the one you’ll pick up when you want to add running to your routine. So how does it compare? Let’s lace up and try it out.
What is the Peloton app?
Peloton is best known for its stationary bikes with built-in video screens, but that’s only a small part of the company’s offerings. There is a companion app, available for Android and iOS, that includes bike workouts and workouts for strength training, running, yoga, and more. If you own a Bike, Bike+, Tread (the treadmill), or Row (the rower), your $44/month All Access subscription includes access to the app.
But you can also use the app on its own, no major equipment purchase needed. For $12.99/month (after a 30-day free trial) you can take outdoor running classes, which are audio-only, and you can follow along with videos for strength training and yoga. Peloton’s “gym” workouts are also included; these give you instructions to follow when training at a normal gym.
There’s another tier in between: the Peloton App+ tier is $24/month and includes the platform’s signature cycling workouts, as well as workouts for the treadmill and rower. You can do these workouts on your own off-brand bike, or take the app to the gym and follow along while you use whatever cardio equipment they happen to have.
Note that much of the brand’s “running” content is in the form of video classes meant to be watched on a treadmill. With the cheaper App One tier, you can take three of these classes per month—which might be enough if you just want the occasional treadmill run as a contingency plan for bad weather.
To run outdoors, you only need the lowest tier, Peloton App One. If you want to add video classes that you can do on a treadmill, you’ll need the $24/month App+ tier.
Keeps your exercise minutes in the Peloton ecosystem
Has a wide variety of guided runs with charismatic coaches and popular music
Includes a beginner program and a marathon training program
Can export runs to Strava
Strength training and yoga are available in the same app
Where it falls short (for runners)
No built-in integration with Garmin
No summary statistics like weekly mileage
Maps don’t sync to Strava
Only two training programs
No guided classes for the marathon programs’ long runs
Setup
When you first open the app, you’ll have to create an account with Peloton and verify your email address. Then you get to choose a username, which will be publicly viewable, and enter your birthdate.
After that, you'll get the screen prompting you to sign up for one of the app subscription tiers, as discussed above. (Remember: always cancel immediately, then decide later if you’d like to re-up.)
Next, it asks you to “check your privacy settings” by indicating your country and state. Strangely, the states are in reverse alphabetical order. No privacy settings are actually available from this screen. (I’ll say more about privacy later.)
Then it asks you whether you see yourself as beginner, intermediate, or advanced, and what kinds of workouts you are most interested in. There are options for walking and running, indoor and outdoor. This screen seems to be there to set up your “perfect first class recommendations” that appear on the app’s home screen.
Using the app
The app has five main screens accessible from buttons at the bottom:
Home: This is where you’ll find suggested workouts.
Classes: This is where you can search for guided runs and classes that you’d like to take.
Just workout: This is where you can choose an activity, like outdoor running, to track without taking a class.
The fourth spot is either a screen selling you an upgraded membership, or (with a full account) a social feed.
Profile: This is where you can see the workouts you’ve taken, set a goal, or view the badges you’ve earned.
When I tested the app by setting up a free trial for the App One tier, only a handful of workouts were available. The Outdoor tag showed 15 audio classes (seven runs, five walks, three walk+run) and the Running tag, which has treadmill classes, showed five. If you uncheck “free classes” from the class filter, you’ll see a lot more.
Running with the app
When you run with the app, you select an outdoor run (make sure to select “outdoor” or look for the “audio” tag) and then hit “start” when you’re on the road, ready to run. The instructor guides you through what you need to do—which might include some warmup exercises like high knees—and then guides you through the session. Music plays in the background, and the playlist is part of the class. The instructor might talk about the song that’s playing and why they picked it.
The instructor will cue you to run faster or slower based on an RPE (rate of perceived exertion) scale where 0 is sitting still, and 10 is an all-out effort. You might be asked to do run efforts at a 7 and recover with walking or light jogging at a 2. Your pace, in the sense of minutes per mile, isn’t a factor. You can ignore the instructor and go faster or slower than instructed, and the app won’t notice or care.
If you don’t want to do a guided run, but you still want to track it in your Peloton app, you can use the center button to “Just Run” as they used to call it. (It’s now just a button labeled “Outdoor Running.” You can track other activities this way too.)
During and after the run, your phone will show your distance, elevation gain, calories burned, and pace. During the run, you’ll see your current pace, average pace, and best (fastest) pace.
Afterward, when you view the workout from your profile, pace is shown as your average pace, and average speed in miles per hour (which is the same thing, but in different units). You’ll also be able to view charts of your pace, speed (again, same thing!), and elevation.
Training plans
Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Peloton
Training plans are found in the “programs” section of the classes screen. (I didn’t see it on my free trial, but it’s there in the paid All-Access version of the app.)
Peloton’s programs are a bit tricky to follow. Everything is laid out one week at a time, so you can’t get an overview of the whole thing to get a sense of mileage. The workouts are also based on time, since the platform offers (for example) 30-minute classes, not 3-mile classes. The exception would be the long run—more about that in a minute.
When you begin a program, the first workout unlocks, and you need to do that workout (or tap a button to skip it) before you can do the next one. This means there’s no rescheduling workouts or doing them out of order: you can do each one or skip it. That’s it.
You also need to stick to the week-by-week schedule. You have seven calendar days to do the workouts in the current week, after which they are gone and you are moved on to Week 2. So if you finish early, you can’t start the next week early. And if you didn’t get to that last workout before the week changed over, too late, you can’t do it now.
Peloton has two programs for treadmill users, and two for outdoor running:
You Can Run (treadmill)
You Can Run Outdoors (outdoor)
Road to Your 5K (treadmill)
Road to Your 26.2, parts 1, 2, and 3 (outdoor)
The two You Can Run programs feature two 20-minute workouts each week, and start with run/walk workouts. Gradually you’ll do more running.
The Road to Your 26.2 plans are for runners who want to train for a marathon. They include strength training, which is great. But the inflexibility of the program schedule, as I described above, would be a problem for me if I were relying on this to get me to the finish line of an actual marathon I had paid money to sign up for.
Runners have sometimes said on forums like Reddit that they don’t feel the midweek runs don’t have enough mileage to train for a strong marathon, and that it’s best to add some more running on your own.
But by far the biggest common complaint about the marathon program is that it’s based on guided runs, but doesn’t provide guided runs for your long runs. The long runs are the cornerstone of any marathon training program. But all Peloton gives you is a 10-minute guided warmup, and then you’re on your own to do the scheduled number of miles. That seems like a strange reversal when you’re probably doing it because the guided runs help you to get through the grind of training.
Social features and privacy
When you take a video class with Peloton, your username appears on a leaderboard, where others can see it, with your approximate age and gender underneath it (something like “F - 40s”).
Peloton says that “profile pictures, leaderboard names, tags, and badges are always public.” However, you can hide other things. Here are the available privacy settings:
You can set your profile to “private” so that only approved followers can view your full profile
You can choose whether your workout history is viewable only by yourself, or by others. If your profile is private, your choices are “My followers” or “only me.” If your profile is public, those choices become “Anyone on Peloton” or “only me.”
You can hide yourself from the search
You can hide yourself from suggested contacts, when somebody syncs their contact list
You can turn off the contact syncing feature for yourself (that is, using your phone contacts to find others)
You can hide maps of your outdoor run routes
You can hide your age and gender on class leaderboards
You can turn the “personalized experience” on or off; same with “marketing and ads based on activity.”
These settings are all available in your profile, under preferences. Yes, some of them are confusingly similar. With some you need to turn a toggle on to hide your data, and with others you have to turn the toggle off to opt out. And finally, as of just a few months ago, Peloton will let you block users.
What you can do with and without a subscription
Without a subscription, you only get a free trial with a limited number of classes. With an App One subscription ($12.99/month), you can access outdoor runs (guided and Just Run) as well as strength and yoga classes. You need the App+ subscription ($24/month) for full access to all of the workout types, including the ability to take more than 3 treadmill classes per month.
What this app does well
The main upside of Peloton’s running features is that they work with the Peloton ecosystem. If you’re trying to get your minutes in for the annual challenge, doing your runs through this app will keep everything in the same place. And if you have friends who live in the Peloton world as well, you can all train for a marathon together, or discuss your favorite guided runs and instructors.
Aside from that integration, I can’t figure out why anyone would want to run with the Peloton app, unless you’re truly in love with guided runs from your favorite particular instructors. The guided runs provide a chatty voice and handpicked music, which can be nice for variety, but is that really worth $12.99/month or more?
Okay, I’ll say one more nice thing: even at the cheapest tier, the app does have strength and yoga built in, including a number of classes aimed specifically at runners. Since runners notoriously skip their strength training (just like lifters skip their cardio), this can be a good way to always have a workout literally in your back pocket.
Downsides and drawbacks
The biggest downside of Peloton as a running app is that it isn’t much of a running app! It only tracks the most basic metrics (time, distance, and pace of each run) and only has a few lackluster training programs. You can get guided runs and better training programs from Nike Run Club—and that app is free!
Honestly, the running is really just an add-on to a general fitness app. If you enjoy the other components, like strength and yoga, and don’t want much in the way of running metrics or coaching, then it’s convenient to get your runs done with the same app. But if you’re just looking for an app that is good at tracking running, I’d skip this one.
I consider myself pretty conversant in metric units. I know that 20 kilograms is 44 pounds (double it and add 10%) and that five kilometers is a little over three miles (I’ve, uh, run a lot of 5Ks). But Celsius temperatures are trickier. Instead of memorizing a one-step formula, try these three tricks—two of which require zero math.
Why it’s so annoying to convert between Fahrenheit and Celsius
Not only are Celsius and Fahrenheit degrees different sizes (each Celsius degree covers more of the scale), they have different baselines because Celsius is calibrated to the properties of water, and Fahrenheit is calibrated to the comfort of humans:
Zero degrees Celsius is the freezing point of water. (It's 32 degrees Fahrenheit.)
100 degrees Celsius is the boiling point of water. (It's 212 degrees Fahrenheit.)
Zero degrees Fahrenheit, as a weather forecast, is bitterly cold. (-18 degrees Celsius.)
100 degrees Fahrenheit, as a weather forecast, is sweltering hot. (38 degrees Celsius.)
With other measurement scales, like pounds versus kilograms, the baseline is the same: zero pounds is equivalent to zero kilos. So you just need to multiply or divide (by 2.2, in this case) to convert one to the other.
For temperature, though, you need to account for the different units and the different baseline. So it's a two-step process: you need to multiply and add (or subtract and divide). Here are the official formulas:
To convert Celsius to Fahrenheit:
(degrees in celsius * 1.8) + 32
To convert Fahrenheit to Celsius:
(degrees in Fahrenheight - 32) * 0.55
If it helps, 1.8 is equivalent to 9/5, and .55 is 5/9. I used the decimals here because we all carry calculators now. In any case, there are easier ways to do this in your head than memorizing formulas! I'll give you three options, in order from least math to most.
Memorize this poem to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit without any math
Still too much math? Try memorizing this poem:
30 is hot, 20 is nice, 10 is chilly, and zero is ice.
Those numbers correspond to 86, 68, 50, and 32 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively, but you don't need to know that. If the forecast is around 10 degrees, you need a light jacket. If it's over 30, that's beach weather. And a fun bonus fact, in case you’re ever vacationing in the Arctic: -40 is -40 in both scales.
How to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit by just remembering four numbers
The poem above will get you in the right ballpark, but if you prefer numbers to words, here's a cute trick that relies on the symmetry between some of the numbers on the thermometer.
Here’s the trick: You reverse the digits of these specific numbers.
04 degrees Celsius is 40 degrees Fahrenheit (chilly!)
16 degrees Celsius is 61 degrees Fahrenheit (hoodie weather)
28 degrees Celsius is 82 degrees Fahrenheit (balmy!)
40 degrees Celsius is 104 degrees Fahrenheit (stay inside and crank up the A/C)
You can even use this conversion both ways, if you remember which one is which. The Celsius degrees are always the smaller number of the pair, so 61 Fahrenheit is 16 Celsius. And by the way: The numbers are all 12 apart. (4 + 12 = 16, 16 + 12 = 28, etc.)
The only weird one here is 40, but now that you’ve read it, you get the idea. Four degrees Celsius is 40 Fahrenheit, and 40 Celsius is 104 Fahrenheit. So if you're on vacation and you hear it’s going to be 32 today, you know that that’s more than 28 (82 Fahrenheit) but thankfully below 40 Celsius (104 F). It’s tank top and shorts weather.
How to estimate a Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion for any temperature, with only a little math
If you want a formula that works for any temperature, but that is still easier than the original formula, we can replace the 1.8 or 0.55 with a simple halving or doubling. That means our approximate formulas are:
Celsius to Fahrenheit: double it and add 32
Fahrenheit to Celsius: subtract 32 and then cut the resulting number in half
20 Celsius is now 40 + 32 = 72 (actual answer: 68). And to do it the other way around: 72 Fahrenheit is 40/2, which is 20 Celsius. You can even use 30 instead of 32, if that lets you do the math quicker—the answer will still be close enough.
Much of the eastern United States is under a heat dome right now, a weather formation that traps hot, humid air. Temperatures are in the high 90's or over 100 in many places, and these conditions are predicted to last the week. This is dangerous weather, so here’s what you should know about staying cool and staying safe.
What is an excessive heat warning?
First, let’s talk about the difference between a “warning” and a watch or outlook. A warning is the most serious of the three. As the Normal Fire Department famously explained with a taco analogy, a taco watch means that we have the ingredients to make tacos. A taco warning means you better get ready because we are having tacos right now.
Here’s how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration describes these three levels:
An excessive heat outlook means that an excessive heat event could occur in the next three to seven days.
An excessive heat watch means that weather conditions are such that an excessive heat event is likely in the next 24 to 72 hours.
An excessive heat warning means that a dangerous level of heat is coming in the next 12 to 24 hours. The Red Cross says this means it is time to “take precautions immediately to avoid heat-related illness.”
A heat advisory means that dangerous heat conditions are already happening.
You can see weather statements like the above for your area by going to weather.gov, which has a big ol’ color coded map on the front page telling you which areas are under a watch or warning, and for what dangers. (Fire, wind, and flood alerts are also included.)
How to stay hydrated in a heat wave
Heat can be dangerous. If you get so hot that you cannot cool down, you’re susceptible to heat illness including heat exhaustion and heatstroke.
So, when it comes to taking care of yourself and checking on others, make sure to:
Stay hydrated. Drinking enough water allows your body to cool itself through sweating. Drink before you’re thirsty, and drink plenty of water; keep sugary and alcoholic drinks to a minimum.
Get electrolytes. You lose sodium from your body when you sweat, but normal food intake is usually enough to replace it. Sports drinks and electrolyte tablets are convenient, too.
Check with your doctor if you have a condition that requires you to keep a close eye on your hydration or electrolytes. They can give you more specific guidance on how much you should be drinking. Also ask if any of your medications can make you more susceptible to extreme heat; some can.
How to keep cool in a heat wave
First, stay in the air conditioning as much as you can. If you don’t have air conditioning at home, find air conditioned places you can spend time. These might be a friend’s or family member’s house, or public places like a shopping mall or a library. Communities often set up cooling stations for heat relief. If you can’t find one, check with your local health department, with this directory that links directly to local cooling station listings where possible, or call 2-1-1.
When you have to go out, wear light-colored, loose-fitting clothing, and stay in the shade as much as you can. Bring your water. Don’t forget sunscreen if you’ll be in the sun, and remember that not all sunscreen is sweat-proof.
The early morning and late evening will be the least hot times to be outside. Use those times for exercise, outdoor work, or other physical tasks. Plan in time to rest in the shade as needed, for example if you’re going to be walking to the store on an errand.
The same tips that you use for yourself apply to others as well, including children, pets, and elderly neighbors. Make sure never to leave children or pets in a car in the heat, even for a short time. Double check when you leave the car that everybody has gotten out.
If you know people who don’t have air conditioning, make sure to check on them. An estimated 80% of deaths from extreme heat occur in people who are 60 or older, so definitely check in on the older folks in your life. Find out if they’re able to keep themselves cool or if they need a ride to a cooling station. Check on their pets, too.
The Red Cross advises checking on older adults and people with chronic health conditions at least twice a day, and asking these questions:
Are they drinking enough water?
Do they have access to air conditioning?
Do they know how to keep cool?
Do they show any signs of heat stress?
Know the signs of heat illness
Heat exhaustion occurs when we can’t cool ourselves down enough. It’s not an emergency yet, but could quickly get worse. Nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and feeling faint can all occur with heat exhaustion. The skin is usually cold, pale, clammy, and sweaty. If you’re throwing up from the heat or if your symptoms last more than an hour, it’s time to seek medical help.
Heatstroke is the next stage, and it’s an emergency. Call 911 if somebody has a high body temperature (over 103), if they act confused or drunk, if they pass out, or if they have stopped sweating and have hot, reddened skin. The CDC has more information here.
In either case, it’s important to cool the person down. (If you have called 911, do this while you wait for help.) Loosen clothes and consider a cold bath or shower, or place cool wet cloths on the person. You can offer them a sip of water if they have heat exhaustion, but skip this step if they have signs of heatstroke.
If all of this is too much to remember, the Red Cross has a printable fact sheet that includes tips for staying cool and a chart with the symptoms and recommended first aid for heat illness.
With a record-breaking heat dome roasting the eastern half of the United States this week, it’s important to not only stay cool for comfort but to actively avoid experiencing heat exhaustion and its more serious cousin, heat stroke. Knowing the signs of both can help keep you and your friends and family safe.
Heat stroke is a serious condition that can result in seizures, organ failure, and more. And before you get heat stroke, you’ll experience a milder condition called heat exhaustion. Both conditions occur when the body overheats. Normally, our bodies try to cool us down by bringing hot blood from our core to the surface of the skin, where we radiate that heat into our environment. The evaporation that results from sweating also helps to cool our skin. We get into trouble when the environment is too hot or too humid for these mechanisms to cool us down.
Who is at risk for heat exhaustion and heat stroke?
Heat stroke in healthy people is often associated with exercise, since working out raises your core temperature. This is especially the case if you’re not very fit, or if you’re used to working out in cooler weather. As you get used to exercising in the heat, your body learns how to cool itself more efficiently.
Things that increase the risk of heat exhaustion and heat stroke include:
Exercising in high temperatures and humidity
Poor fitness
Being large (regardless of your body type—having a lot of fat or a lot of muscle both affect your ability to cool down)
Dehydration
Wearing or carrying gear, like football pads or a hiking pack
Drinking alcohol
Using certain medications or supplements, including beta blockers and diuretics
Any disability or illness that makes it harder for you to get out of the heat or to cool yourself
Heat exhaustion occurs when your core body temperature is elevated, but not enough to involve your brain. If you or an overheated friend shows any sign of being confused, for example, assume it’s heat stroke and get medical help right away.
If you begin to feel these symptoms, start cooling yourself down right away: move to the shade or air conditioning, loosen your clothing, have a cold drink, and keep watch for any signs that you’re feeling worse or not getting better. If you haven’t recovered within an hour, seek medical help.
Signs and symptoms of heat stroke
Heat stroke occurs when the body’s temperature is extremely high (over 104, taken rectally) and can affect the brain as well as the body. The person with heat stroke may be too confused to realize that they are in danger, so watch out for the signs in other people.
Heat stroke is a serious condition, so if you suspect it, get medical help right away. If you’re at an event with medical staff (like if you’re running a marathon or playing in a football game), alert them. Otherwise, call 911 or the emergency number for your area. Signs of heat stroke can include some of the symptoms above, like headache, dizziness, and nausea, plus:
Confusion, irritability, or hallucination
Passing out or collapsing
Trouble walking
Seizures
Reddened skin, with or without sweating
You can help the person cool down while you wait for help. Medical staff may decide it’s best to cool the person down before transporting them to a hospital, but that depends on whether the person needs other medical treatment. The ideal way of cooling down a person with heat stroke is to put them in a tub of cold water with ice, and stir the water constantly.
If that’s not possible, a cold shower or a cold hose can work, or apply icy wet towels to the person’s body and swap them out every three minutes or whenever they stop being icy cold.
Nobody likes to feel sluggish and sweaty, so when the sun is set to “broil,” I understand that you’d rather take your workout to an air-conditioned gym. But the human body really can acclimate to exercising in the heat! After a few weeks, these temperatures will be your new normal—and research suggests you may enjoy a small performance boost when the weather cools down again.
Hot workouts can be dangerous, so I trust that you know common sense advice about running in the heat. Among the most important: Drink to thirst (or a little bit more), and stop and get help if you start feeling symptoms of heat illness like nausea, dizziness, or weakness. And while it’s great to work on your ability to run in the heat, don’t be stupid about it—stay inside if the temperature is hotter than you can handle, and stay aware of smog and ozone levels (which get worse on hot days) if you live in an urban area.
Running is miserable and heat is miserable, therefore running in the heat is miserable. But there’s more to it than that, and exercising in the heat feels even worse than you'd expect from stacking those two factors together.
Your brain perceives effort differently in the heat, so even before you overheat, you feel sluggish. In a study published in the European Journal of Physiology, cyclists who worked out in a lab with a temperature of 95 degrees were slower than when they did the same time trial at 59 degrees. That makes sense, but here’s the weird part: They didn’t overheat and then slow down. They were slower from the start. It seems our brains slow our bodies down proactively on hot days in order to conserve energy.
As a workout continues, our bodies heat up. In another study, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, when asked to cycle to exhaustion, participants pooped out when their core temperatures reached 104 degrees, no matter what temperature they started at. The athletes that took the longest to reach that temperature were the ones who wore a fancy water-cooling jacket. You can mimic this effect in your own workouts by drinking ice-cold beverages and pouring water over your head. The longer you can keep your body cool, the longer you can keep up a hard effort.
It's the heat and the humidity
But cooling your body isn’t a complete solution. Dumping a cup of ice water over your head or putting one into your belly only provides momentary relief, and water-cooling jackets aren’t practical outside of physiology labs. So let’s look at what happens in real world conditions.
Your body tries to cool off, in part, by sweating. When moisture evaporates from your skin, it takes some body heat with it. In humid weather, though, sweat doesn’t evaporate as easily because the air is already full of water vapor. So when we’re talking about “heat,” we really mean something more like “perceived heat,” which is a combination of heat and humidity. This heat index chart shows the relationship:
Credit: NOAA
You’ll run slower in the heat (and humidity). While you can find charts like this one that predict how much slower you will run a race, the truth is that heat's effect on your running depends on whether you’re used to the heat, and on your body size.
That’s right—not your fitness level, but your actual physical size. People who are larger have more muscle, fat, or both. Muscle generates heat, and fat acts as an insulator. On the other hand, smaller folks generate less heat, but have more skin through which to dissipate that heat—the ol’ surface area to volume ratio. This is why petite runners place better in races on hot days.
Some people think being more fit makes you better at dealing with heat, but that's only partially true: The fitter you are, the more body heat you produce, just because you’re so good at working hard. Short of changing your body shape (which is possible, but hardly a short-term fix), what can you do to tolerate exercising in the heat better? The answer is simple: Spend more time exercising in the heat.
Running in the heat makes you better at running in the heat—and it makes you better, period.
Say you do all your workouts outdoors this summer, while your equally fit twin does identical workouts on a treadmill in an air-conditioned gym. Who do you think will finish first in a 5K on a hot weekend in August? That’s right, you will.
But even if the weather is unseasonably cool on that August day, your heat training will still help you beat your twin. Part of the magic of heat training is that it increases the amount of blood in your veins (the better to put it towards your skin for cooling, while still having enough to fuel your muscles). The effect has been compared to a mild, totally legal version of blood doping. Scientists are still debating exactly how this effect works, and whether it always happens when people attempt to adapt to heat adaptation, but overall the evidence is strong enough that I believe we should all try to get some of those adaptations if we can do so safely.
Here’s the bad news: Heat adaptation takes work. It’s not enough to sit around in the air conditioning all summer, only venturing outside for occasional workouts. A study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that people who made no particular effort to exercise in the heat didn’t have any better heat tolerance in the fall than in the spring. If you want the advantages of heat training, you have to work for them.
Option 1: Train normally, but without avoiding the heat, for two weeks
In scientific research, heat acclimation protocols for athletes generally involve 7 to 10 consecutive days of exercising in the heat, for 60 to 90 minutes each day. A simpler method that can be done by entire teams, or by individuals, is to simply do your normal training in the heat for about two weeks.
Take it easy at first. Remember that your body is still trying to convince you that you are super tired and need to slow down. Safety guidelines for workers provide a reality check here. On their first day in the heat, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recommends giving workers just 20% of their usual workload. Within a week, they should slowly ramp up to 100%.
Option 2: Spend two hours in the heat every day, whether you're exercising or not
This US Army training protocol provides a good road map for adapting yourself to the heat: Spend at least two hours in the heat each day, it says, and include cardiovascular exercise (like running, cycling, or anything that gets your heart rate up) as part of that. If you can’t handle two hours without feeling symptoms like nausea or dizziness, do what you can and view the two-hour benchmark as a goal to work toward.
You can expect to be better adapted to the heat after about two weeks of spending two hours per day in the heat, although you may be able to start seeing results in just a few days.
Option 3: Visit the sauna after each workout
A way to combine the protocols above, without relying on the weather, is to step into a sauna or hot bath after your workout. If your gym has a sauna, this is a great way to use it. The post-workout sauna time will help your heat adaptation, and you can do it even if your workout was done in less-than-sweltering temperatures. The time spent in the sauna can be 15 to 30 minutes, starting with a shorter time and working up to longer.
How to keep your heat adaptations even when the weather cools off
To stay adapted to the heat, you have to keep spending time in it. You can take a few days off, but if you slack off for a week, you’ll start to lose your hot weather superpowers. This snowballs quickly: you'll lose about 75% of your adaptations after three weeks, according to the Army’s estimates.
To keep up your heat training in cool weather, you can try wearing long sleeves and tights, like elite runner Kara Goucher did when training for a world championship race in muggy Osaka. (She won a bronze medal, the first American ever to do so). She also spent a few weeks in Osaka before the race began; traveling to experience the heat might be an option worth considering if you’re a dedicated athlete with vacation time to burn.
You can also try the opposite of this keep-cool advice, and choose to run at the hottest time of day on asphalt roads with no shade. Or return to the sauna protocol after your cooler-weather workouts. Whatever you do, stay safe, and enjoy your new superpowers.
Raw milk is natural and brings you closer to the earth. It is also a great way to get sick. And best of all, it’s now a faux health hack/political football, thrown into the limelight by recent reports on bird flu. That’s right, the TikTokers are drinking raw milk out of spite—or maybe just for the affiliate marketing deals. I’ll explain.
What is raw milk?
Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized. The regular milk you buy in the grocery store is pasteurized as a basic safety measure. The milk is heated to kill bacteria; there are different ways of doing it, but the most common is to hold the milk at 161 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds, then rapidly cool it.
Before pasteurization was widespread, milk was frequently a carrier of disease-causing organisms, including tuberculosis, Salmonella, diphtheria, and diarrheal disease. Pasteurization is required by federal law if milk is sold across state lines, and state law requires pasteurization of most or all milk in a given state.
Raw milk is legal in some states, although laws vary. In some, it can be sold at stores; in others, only as direct sales from farms, or only if it is labeled as pet milk, or only if you buy into a cow-share, because then you technically “own” the cow. In many states all of these are illegal.
So raw milk is a niche product, favored by some cheesemakers and some people who believe that “natural” everything is better. The FDA has counted 143 disease outbreaks linked to raw milk since 1987. Besides the illnesses mentioned above, raw milk can also carry Listeria (which can result in stillbirth if a pregnant person contracts it), and E. coli in a form that can pass from person to person after someone contracts it from drinking raw milk.
Why is everybody talking about raw milk?
Two things happened recently to put raw milk on the public radar. One is that there is a bird flu virus that has been going around, and it’s infecting cows as well as birds. RNA from the virus has been found in samples of grocery store milk. It’s not yet 100% clear whether pasteurization kills the virus, but people don’t seem to be getting bird flu from milk—so it’s likely that pasteurization is providing some protection.
This news about bird flu has led to the FDA and CDC emphasizing their already-existing messaging about why it’s a bad idea to drink (or sell) raw milk, especially to vulnerable populations like children and people who may be pregnant (since raw milk can carry Listeria, among other things).
And whenever there is a simple, clear public health message, there will always be people who object to it on principle. The government is trying to take away your natural pure, (bacteria-laden) raw milk! It’s time to fight back! At least one conservative group has been selling “got raw milk?” shirts.
The second news item feeding into this trend is that Louisiana’s state legislature has been debating a bill, recently passed, that would legalize sales of raw milk so long as it is labeled “not for human consumption.” People want their raw milk, germs and all.
What are the TikTokers saying about raw milk?
As you might expect: anything that gets engagement. Often the talking points are that it is more “digestible,” contains beneficial bacteria, or that pasteurization kills the “vitamins and nutrients” in milk.
None of this is supported by scientific consensus. Pasteurized milk has the same nutritional content as raw milk; everything is still in there, it’s just been heated. No nutrients have been removed, and you can’t “kill” vitamins or minerals.
Beneficial bacteria can be killed by pasteurization, but killing bacteria is kind of the whole point, remember? There’s no procedure that only kills “bad” bacteria while leaving the good ones; it’s all-or-nothing. If you want probiotics in your diet, you’re best off drinking pasteurized milk and taking probiotic pills, yogurt, or other probiotic-containing foods separately. (Probiotic yogurt is made by adding known “good” bacteria to pasteurized milk.)
They’re selling something, of course
The TikTokers are also, of course, affiliate marketing up a storm. One of the top #rawmilk videos recommended to me was of a man repeating the above claims, telling you that government and Big Pharma don’t want you to know about raw milk, and endorsing a specific farm.
He said that he’s sure milk from this farm is safe, because they test it. So I visited the farm’s website. They mention in several places that their milk is tested for “pathogens,” but I couldn’t find any explanation of which pathogens they test for, or how. I did find the page where influencers can sign up for their affiliate program, which pays cash to a select few. Gwyneth Paltrow has publicly name-dropped the same farm, so she might be on the list. (California, where this farm is based, is one of the states that allows retail sales of raw milk.)
So I should drink raw milk, right?
Please do not. As the FDA points out, all the major TikTok talking points are wrong. To name a few: the enzymes in raw milk do not aid in digestibility, the bacteria found in raw milk are not the kind that is good for our digestive system, raw milk is not more nutritious, and testing programs “might help to reduce the probability of raw milk contamination but they will not ensure that raw milk is pathogen-free.”
We eat a lot of ultra-processed food. It's everywhere, and the cheapest grocery options are often ultra-processed ones. That's why it's concerning that ultra-processed foods have been linked to a variety of health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, mental health disorders, and everyone's favorite, all-cause mortality. So what counts as ultra-processed food? Let's dig in, and maybe question a few assumptions along the way.
Here's a big caveat worth remembering: When studies look at the health of people who do and don't eat ultra-processed foods, they're not necessarily studying the fact that the food is ultra-processed. We can say that a diet high in candy bars is bad for us, but is that because the candy bars are ultra-processed, or because they're full of sugar? That's not a question that the current research can really untangle, but it's important to ask ourselves as we learn more. Are ultra-processed foods always bad, or are they just a category that includes a lot of food we should eat less of?
Unprocessed or “minimally processed” foods (group 1) include fruits, vegetables, and meats. Perhaps you’ve pulled a carrot out of the ground and washed it, or killed a cow and sliced off a steak. Foods in this category can be processed in ways that don’t add extra ingredients. They can be cooked, ground, dried, or frozen.
Processed culinary ingredients (group 2) include sugar, salt, and oils. If you combine ingredients in this group, for example to make salted butter, they stay in this group.
Processed foods (group 3) are what you get when you combine groups 1 and 2. Bread, wine, and canned veggies are included. Additives are allowed if they “preserve [a food’s] original properties” like ascorbic acid added to canned fruit to keep it from browning.
Ultra-processed foods (group 4) don’t have a strict definition, but NOVA hints at some properties. They “typically” have five or more ingredients. They may be aggressively marketed and highly profitable. A food is automatically in group 4 if it includes “substances not commonly used in culinary preparations, and additives whose purpose is to imitate sensory qualities of group 1 foods or of culinary preparations of these foods, or to disguise undesirable sensory qualities of the final product.”
That last group feels a little disingenuous. I’ve definitely seen things in my kitchen that are supposedly only used to make “ultra-processed” foods: food coloring, flavor extracts, artificial sweeteners, anti-caking agents (cornstarch, anyone?) and tools for extrusion and molding, to name a few.
Are ultra-processed foods always bad?
So we've learned that packaged snack cakes are ultra-processed, and so is a factory-baked loaf of bread that has 20 ingredients. Orange juice whose flavor has been manipulated would count, too. Coke and Diet Coke are both solidly in this category. It seems logical that we should eat less of these things.
But you could argue that the real problem with these foods is that they’re often sugary and high calorie, and many of the less-healthy members of the category are what stock the vending machines and convenience stores that beckon to us when we’re hungry and haven’t packed a lunch. The problem with these foods is that a diet full of them is unbalanced, due to the nutrition they do or don’t contain. The processing itself isn’t the problem.
So when we talk about ultra-processed foods, we have to remember that it’s a vague category that only loosely communicates the nutrition of its foods. Just like BMI combines muscley athletes with obese people because it makes for convenient math, NOVA categories combine things of drastically different nutritional quality.
Why the level of processing isn't always the most important thing
Illustrating the point above, the USDA published their own study showing how you can create a healthy diet out of ultra-processed foods. A homemade breakfast burrito, for example, might contain canned beans, liquid egg whites, shredded cheese, and a store-bought tortilla. Those ingredients might be ultra-processed, but they're nutritionally nothing like grabbing a Cinnabon on your way to work.
A pet peeve of mine is that the NOVA classification sometimes draws distinctions between things that aren’t really nutritionally different. Wine is in group 3 next to cheese and fresh bread, but cocktails are in group 4 with the Twinkies. Hard liquor has been distilled, you see, so it’s ultra-processed.
Canned vegetables are in group 3 (processed) while their fresh counterparts are in group 1. But canned veggies aren’t any less nutritious. Meanwhile, dried fruit is in group 1 (so wholesome!) even though it can be more sugary than cakes or cookies.
There's a lot of overlap between unhealthy(?) foods and ultra-processed foods, so I understand why scientists are studying ultra-processed foods as a group. But demonizing UPF, as they're sometimes called, often ends up putting the cheapest, most widely available food in the most shameful category. Is that fair, or does it just make you feel better when you’re eating fresh green beans and scoffing at people who buy canned?
The NOVA scale isn’t totally useless: It helps researchers keep an eye on how much of our food is coming from large-scale manufacturers. But it’s not a great way to evaluate what’s in our grocery bags, or on our plates.
To continue my series on the best running apps (see also: Runna, and going app-less), I spent some time this week with my old love, Nike Run Club. I’ve always been a sucker for Nike’s aesthetics (go ahead, roast me) and this is an app I’ve come back to again and again. It has guided runs, training plans, and an incredibly good companion app for the Apple Watch.
What is Nike Run Club?
Nike Run Club is an app for both iOS and Android. It can track runs from an Apple Watch or directly from your phone (put it in your pocket or running belt, and let it use your phone’s GPS). It has a library of guided runs and a few training programs, but you can also use it to track runs you do on your own (as long as you track them from the app).
Nike Run Club has an excellent Apple Watch app
Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Nike Run Club
The iOS version also comes with a full-featured Apple Watch app. Besides the basics of tracking your run and playing music, the Apple Watch app lets you view your workout history, choose a guided run, do the next run from your training plan, or start a new run with a time or distance goal. There’s a “speed” function that gives you a lap button if you’d like to do a homebrew interval workout, and a “match it” function for when you want to do the same run you did last time.
The Apple Watch even has special Nike faces and some cute complications, like one that can tell you how many runs you’ve done from your training plan this week.
What Nike Run Club is good at
Guided runs with a variety of lengths, types, and coach personalities
Full-featured Apple Watch app
Big, bold numbers to focus your attention on basic metrics, like the current interval time (during a run) or your weekly mileage (when you check your stats in the app)
Training plans are barebones, but get the job done
Where Nike Run Club falls short
Doesn’t have full integration with Garmin or other wearables—just the Apple Watch
Training plans aren’t personalized, and don’t give you a choice of guided runs
Not customizable enough for the most serious runners
Setup
Unlike Runna, you don’t need to tell Nike Run Club anything about yourself, or create a training plan, or look at your subscription options. You do need to create a free account, but that’s it.
If you’d like to track the mileage on your shoes, you can add your shoes to the app. Many running apps have this feature, but Nike has images of all its shoes saved in the app and will use an icon of your current shoe to show your location on the Start Run screen. Yes, it’s cheesy, but I found it useful to see that it’s about to log my miles on my pink shoes, not my black shoes—so if I’m wearing the black ones, I’ll need to tap to change that.
Using the app
The app has five tabs along the bottom:
Home, where you’ll see articles and announcements about new guided runs or challenges. (You can safely ignore this tab.)
Plans, where you can check the status of your current training plan (more about those in a minute)
Run, the screen where you’ll start a run. You can access the library of guided runs from here.
Club, where you can find challenges and view the leaderboard comparing your weekly mileage to your friends’
Activity, which shows runs you’ve already done, and badges you’ve earned
Most of the time, you’ll open the app and go straight to the Run tab or, if you’re using a training plan, the Plan tab. To find the guided runs, choose one of the suggestions on the Run tab, or tap "Guided Runs" at the top to see the whole library. There are folders automatically created for runs that you have downloaded (you have to download a guided run before using it) and for runs that you've saved and that you've already completed.
Training plans
Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Nike Run Club
Nike Run Club has a barebones feature for training plans. Your options are “get started,” 5K, 10K, half-marathon, and marathon race distances.
When you set up the plan, you’ll tell it the date of your race if you have one, and … that’s it. You have a plan now. Enjoy!
It doesn’t tailor the plan to your schedule or your fitness level. It just assumes that if you choose the 10K training plan, you’re ready to do most of the runs it programs for you. Fortunately, it’s easy to skip any runs you don’t want to do, and the app suggests this, with a note that says “You’re in charge of your plan, so you can take days off when you need to. You can adjust workouts to fit your weekly schedule, or modify pace and distance based on how you’re feeling.”
When you do a run from the training plan screen, you’ll earn an orange checkmark next to it. Each day’s workout comes with a suggested guided run, or you can choose to run unguided. So far, so good.
But the plans have two major drawbacks, besides the lack of personalization. One is that you have to use that specific guided run to get the checkmark. With so many guided runs in the library, it’s a shame that you can’t explore and choose something different. And what do you do if you train for two 10Ks in a year? You’ll just have to hear the same guided runs all over again.
The other problem, which is going to be a dealbreaker for a lot of serious runners, is that the plans don’t sync with Garmin devices. The app has a Garmin sync feature, but that’s only to get your Garmin Connect runs to show up on the Nike app; it doesn’t go the other way. And those runs won’t count for your training plan, either. People who like the Nike app and own a Garmin watch will have to use two devices at the same time and double-log their runs.
My experience running with Nike Run Club
If you don’t ask for much from this app, you’ll have a smooth experience, with lots of thoughtful touches. The Apple Watch app is great, as I mentioned before, and the guided runs are really well done.
You get a choice of coaches with different personalities (Coach Bennett shows up a lot, but personally my fave is Coach Frankie) and different vibes (the “Don’t Wanna Run Run” is exactly what I need to hear when I’ve dragged myself out of bed).
The app can pair with a heart rate chest strap if you’re running without a watch. If you’re running with both your phone and your watch, you’ll need to start the watch from your phone if you want to view metrics on both. This can be handy for interval runs, since the app gives you a screen showing your times and paces for all the intervals you’ve done in that workout.
Social features and privacy
Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Nike Run Club
You can connect with friends in the app, and you’ll see their name on the leaderboard for weekly mileage. You can choose whether your own profile and activities are viewable by everyone, or if you’d like to keep everything private. There is a middle ground, labeled “friends (social),” where your friends can search for you and find you, but they won’t see your activity unless you accept their friend invitation.
There’s also a feature where friends can send you “cheers” during your run, as a canned message or a voice note that you record. I wasn’t able to test this, since I don’t have friends using the app right now. Years ago, you could share a special link on Twitter or Facebook where your friends could click to send you a cheer; it’s unclear whether that still works. Nike’s documentation about the app tells you how to receive cheers, but not how to send them.
When you want to share a run on other platforms, Nike provides a handful of nifty templates that can overlay your pace, an abstract map of your route, or other details like elevation, over a photo from your camera roll. The options are limited, but I think they look kinda cool. (Again: Roast me.)
What you can do with and without a subscription
Good news: no subscription for this app! All the features are available on the free tier, and there is no paid tier.
What this app does well
Nike Run Club is a great app for runners who don’t need to do specific, complicated workouts, or follow specific training plans. If you just want to go for a run, and are willing to make a spur-of-the-moment choice about what to listen to, this is a great app. If you want a running app that works well on the Apple Watch, this is a great app.
I’m going to take another minute to talk about the guided runs. The coaches sometimes take the role of motivational speakers, sometimes meditation guides (Andy Puddicomb from Headspace narrates several), and sometimes just a straightforward coach (especially in the interval workouts). The motivational talks are cheesy, but they work on me. I remember Coach Frankie telling me on one run: “I like your dedication. And I like the ease with which you’re handling this pace.” It’s a canned speech! He doesn’t know me! And yet, I felt seen, and appreciated, and encouraged.
Downsides and drawbacks
Don’t choose this app if you want personalized training programs, or if you want the app to acknowledge your own training as being part of a program. (It will keep track of your weekly mileage, though.)
Don’t choose this app if you’re a Garmin devotee. You’ll have to log everything on two devices at once. And even though the Apple Watch app is great, it’s not going to appeal to data-enjoying runners the way a Forerunner will. You’ll get pace stats and a little map of your route, but nothing compared to the detailed charts or in-run data you might be used to.
The bottom line
If you’re new to running, or if your main focus is just having fun and staying consistent, this is a great app for you. Same if you love guided runs; this isn’t the only app that provides those, but it does them particularly well. Serious runners should probably stick to an app that focuses more on performance metrics and personalized training plans.
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