Elizabeth Karr PT, DPT

When leg pain appears, many runners focus on muscle strains or joint issues, but neural tension can often be a hidden cause or contributor to discomfort. Recognizing neural tension and addressing it properly can make a significant difference in recovery and performance. What Is Neural Tension? Neural tension refers to the abnormal tightness or irritation of nerves as they move through the body. Nerves are not just passive wires, they glide and stretch with movement. When nerves become...

For runners who are aware of cadence, many have heard of this allegedly "magical" cadence of 180 steps per minute. If your cadence isn't 180, should you try to change it? Let's break it down by explaining what cadence is, where this mythical 180 number came from, if and when you should change your cadence, and how to do it. What is cadence? In running, cadence is the number steps that you take each minute. If you wear a running watch, it likely has this data logged somewhere, and if it...

After years of saying that I would never run a marathon ("I'm only half crazy!"), I finally caught the marathon bug and trained for and ran my first marathon, New York, in 2025. I loved the process of training for the marathon, enjoyed the routine and long runs more than I ever thought I would, made friends along the way, and learned A LOT. I'm here to tell you some of what I learned over the many months and miles that lead up to race day, to help you start your training program on the right...