Free Republic

At age 35, with six months of chemotherapy and three weeks of radiation behind her for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Oregon resident Karen Baas didn’t feel relief because her treatments had ended. She felt poisoned. “Of course I was grateful to have had treatment and get past it,” she told Runner’s World. “But before I got cancer, I was a vet tech, and one of the chemicals we use for euthanasia is red. It turned out one of my infusion chemo drugs is also red. I can’t tell you how disturbing it is to make that mental connection.” Three days after her...

Researchers have found no evidence of elevated cardiac risk in runners who completed a 24-hour ultramarathon (24UM), despite the transient elevation of blood biomarkers that measure cardiac health. According to the study, trained runners were more likely than their novice counterparts to experience raised levels, reflecting the greater cardiac load and pituitary-adrenocortical response to extremely strenuous exercise. "Experienced runners performed with greater intensity and speed, which placed strains on their hearts. Novice runners ran with less intensity, which resulted in lower cardiac biomarker levels," Runners with differences in training experience and competitive performances present variations in running speeds and, therefore,...

Comedian Michelle Wolf has had quite the year. Her HBO special, Nice Lady, proved she’s one of today's best standups. Then, whether you loved it or hated it, she made her mark as the featured guest at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. On top of that, Wolf, 33, just wrapped up the first 10 episodes of her new Netflix show The Break, which is a half hour of sketches, late-night show desk segments, and her cutting standup on news and politics. But when she needs her own break from writing a weekly comedy show or preparing for a set on...