Run to the Top Podcast | The Ultimate Guide to Running

Dr. Meghan Bishop - The Biology of Performance   What is it like running in NYC right now during the pandemic? Why is there a performance gap between male and female athletes? How do running injuries differ between men and women? What are some of the issues facing intersex athletes?    Dr. Meghan Bishop is an orthopaedic surgeon specializing in sports-related injuries of the knee, shoulder, and elbow at the Rothman Orthopaedic Institute in NYC and Westchester, NY. She graduated at the  top of her class at George Washington University Medical School, and completed her residency in Orthopaedic Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, PA. She also completed a fellowship in Sports Medicine and Shoulder Surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, NY. During her fellowship, Dr. Bishop served as one of the team physicians for the New York Knicks and Iona College.    Dr. Bishop has served as head orthopaedic medical director of the 2019 Philadelphia Marathon as well as volunteer physician at the 2019 USATF outdoor track and field championship meet. She is a former Division I collegiate track and field athlete at the College of William and Mary, and qualified for the 2020 US Olympic Marathon Trials in February, placing 50th and scoring a PR.    As an avid marathon runner, Dr. Bishop has a special interest in the sports-related injuries of runners and female athletes. In this episode, Coach Claire and Dr. Bishop talk about an article she recently coauthored that was published in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery on the biology of sex and sport. This article discusses the effects that sex and biology have on performance, why there’s a gap between male and female performance, if that gap can be narrowed or closed, and advantages of female athletes.   Questions Dr. Bishop is asked:   3:02 You are an orthopedic surgeon in NYC.  How are things in the city right now?  How is running?     4:18 What does an orthopedic surgeon do and how does that relate to running?   6:27 What’s the difference between a general sports-medicine doctor, what you do, and a physical therapist?   8:07 Can you talk a little bit about training at such a high level when you clearly also have a pretty high-level job as well?   9:46 When people ask, “Which specialist should I go to?” the first question should be, “Are you a runner?” Can you talk a little bit about the differences between men and women in performance?   12:00 Why do women do well in long distance events?   13:19 If you took a man who is the exact same size as a woman, the same height, the same weight, they still would perform differently. Is that what you’re saying?   13:51 So it’s not just testosterone. If it’s not just testosterone, it’s more complicated than that. Is that correct?   15:39 Do we know why women are more susceptible to those types of injuries?   16:15 You mentioned the shoulder injuries, that they’re more likely in women because you said their ligaments are stretchier. Can you explain that a little bit?   16:59 I’ve definitely seen some studies where you look at the marathon and women seem to slow less in the marathon than men. Is that due to the fatigue resistance or we’re just better strategists?   19:36 On the one hand you want everybody to be able to compete no matter who they are and what their genetic makeup is, but on the other hand, if you’re a female runner and competing against someone who is genetically more male, that gets very challenging if males are 10% faster, better, stronger than us, it’s tough on all sides. I don’t think there is an easy answer for this one.   20:55 It seems like forcing her to take any kind of drugs, that just doesn’t feel right either, so hopefully it’s going to evolve as we go forward as more intersex athletes rise to the high level, I would assume?   21:35 What things could we as women work on to close that gap? Do you think that it’s a possibility that the 10% could shrink in the future, or is this just, this is our biology, this is what we’re stuck with?   22:27 World records seem to be dropping all the time, so you kind of hope the gap would drop too, but maybe not.    22:47 You wore the Nike shoes for the trials, right? How did they work out for you?   23:25 What I’m hearing a lot is that recovery is so much better because they are so cushioned, you don’t pound your legs quite as much and you’re able to walk normally a little quicker after the marathon. Did you find that as well?   24:15 What advice would you give yourself back when you started running?   25:15 What are your favorite strength training exercises for runners?   25:42 What is the best gift running has given you?   26:50 Are you getting in some socially distant running?   27:09 How can people connect with you?   28:00 How do telehealth visits work? Quotes by Dr. Bishop:   “Taking care of a runner really is a multidisciplinary thing. It’s a big group involved with it.”   “Females, I think, in general, are just really tough, but that’s not the biological reason.”   “If you look at the trials this year, over 500 women qualified versus 260 men. I don’t know if that has anything to do with differences in biology, but it’s definitely a big factor that you can see there.”   “Recently, we’ve done a lot more sex-specific reporting and we’ve learned that females and males get injured differently too.”   “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to look into writing the paper recently, because I wanted to look at why performance was different between males and females, and you can see there’s a number of reasons why males have this consistent 10% performance gap over females.”   “Definitely for the fairness of sport, I think that we need to have a fair solution really for everyone, and especially for the female athletes that just don’t have that advantage over other people.”   Want more awesome interviews and advice? Subscribe to our iTunes channel Mentioned in this podcast:    Run To The Top Winners Circle Facebook Community RunnersConnect Facebook page claire@runnersconnect.net The Biology of Sex and Sport Rothman Orthopaedics, Meghan E. Bishop MD Manhattan - Gramercy Office Manhattan - Murray Hill Office Tarrytown, NY Office Westchester/Harrison Office Zocdoc We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Run to the Top. The best way you can show your support of the show is to share this podcast with your family and friends and share it on your Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media channel you use. The more people who know about the podcast and download the episodes, the more I can reach out to and get top running influencers, to bring them on and share their advice, which hopefully makes the show even more enjoyable for you!

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Nicholas Thompson: Faster in Your Forties   Nick is the editor-in-chief of WIRED magazine and former editor of newyorker.com. He’s a contributor to CBS News, CBS This Morning, CBS Sunday Morning, and he’s interviewed just about every major tech company CEO out there. Nick is also a fast marathon runner who in 2019, was ranked as one of the top 30 Masters marathoners in the world after clocking a 2:29 in the Chicago Marathon, a personal best he achieved in his 40s.    In this episode, Coach Claire talks to Nick about how he broke through his marathon pace plateau and psychological barriers by changing his technology, his workouts, as well as getting some surprise coaching assistance from Nike. But more than just going deep into the tools, techniques, and training tweaks he made, Nick talks about how his journey with the marathon started and how it’s inextricably entwined with his childhood, his relationship with his complicated father, and how he now sees himself.    It’s not easy to run faster later in life, but Nick’s story shows that it is absolutely possible. It takes a combination of many things including better training, better technology, as well as “belief and want”, to dramatically change your results, even if you're in your 40s or beyond.    Questions Nick is asked:   2:22 You’re in New York City. Are you still run-commuting to work or are you mostly at home these days?   2:56 Can you explain how your father both inspired you and how you also didn’t want to follow in his footsteps?   5:27 In your 40s, the experts at Nike came up to you and asked if they could help you get better. Can you talk a little bit about that experience?   9:12 With all the changes, there’s so many variables, you can’t really attribute any one thing to your success, but do you think it’s just a combination of all the things you mentioned or is there something that stands out as, “Yes, this helped me get faster?”   14:19 Maybe in your 30s, you just didn’t believe it or you didn’t want it as much as you want it now. Could it be something like that?   16:25 What changed between not knowing your pace / effort when you were younger and now monitoring your heart-rate? 18:30 I wrote down a quote from one of your articles that you wrote. “The quantified self is often a neurotic soul.” And that could pretty much describe most runners. So how do you balance that? All the tech is awesome, but doesn’t it make you a little crazy?   20:28 How do you deal with the what ifs?    25:20 What is your feeling on this? What is the allure of the marathon distance?   26:43 You’re not in New York right now but you used to commute, and I would love to talk about run-commuting. Can you give me some tips about run commuting and how to do it for someone who’s thinking about it?   30:44 Assuming races are going on, are you planning on doing Chicago, or something else?   32:11 What advice would you give yourself back when you started running? 34:25 What is the best gift running has given you? 35:24 How can people connect with you? Quotes by Nick:   “I think that running very fast both improves musculature and helps me psychologically.”   “Having a consistent heart rate monitor, and I used one on my arm, giving me constant feedback of not just feel but how fast I was going, was incredibly helpful, both in helping me sort of adjudicate workouts, and two, pacing in the marathons.”   “There had to be kind of a psychological intervention, which I think happened with the new training, the new coaching, the new workouts, that got me subconsciously to accept that my ambition wasn’t just to run as fast as I’d run before I got sick, but that I could go faster.”   “I feel like the heart rate monitor gives you assurance; the watch gives you fear.”   “One of the issues I have as a runner, and I’m sure you have and others have, is that it’s a hobby. I don’t make any money off this.”   “The perfect Nicholas Thompson, perfectly trained, what is his actual top marathon performance? Could I have made the Olympic trials? Probably.”   “I think what has made success late in life possible is failure early in life.”   “One of the things I think I’ve done a good job at is making my training efficient. And the way I’ve made my training efficient is I run to work; I run home from work.” Take a Listen on Your Next Run   Leave a space for libsyn link   Want more awesome interviews and advice? Subscribe to our iTunes channel Mentioned in this podcast:    Run To The Top Winners Circle Facebook Community RunnersConnect Facebook page claire@runnersconnect.net WIRED magazine article: Aging Marathoner Tries to Run Fast After 40 WIRED subscribe Nick Thompson Follow Nick on:   Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Periscope Spotify Strava Twitter We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Run to the Top. The best way you can show your support of the show is to share this podcast with your family and friends and share it on your Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media channel you use. The more people who know about the podcast and download the episodes, the more I can reach out to and get top running influencers, to bring them on and share their advice, which hopefully makes the show even more enjoyable for you!  

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