By Gavin Kentch
Before IOC Rule 40 descends at the end of this week and further muzzles anything commercial, I need to thank Runners’ Edge Alaska for their generous support of next month’s Olympic coverage on this site.
I hate marketing talk like “this is an authentic partnership,” but damn if I am not a massive fan of Runners’ Edge. They have helped put me back together and get out training again. They have helped my septuagenarian mother keep skiing, while providing her with exercises to support her bone health. If your favorite Olympian lives in Anchorage, and this year there is a 50 percent chance that they do, then they have also helped your favorite skier keep healthy and moving even while training hundreds of hours a year.
Also once they gave me prehab exercises for running, and I did them religiously for like a month and my foot stopped hurting when I ran, and then I never did them again because the pain was gone, and then the issue returned soon after. Still trying to work out what went wrong there.
Embed from Getty ImagesSeriously though, they are amazing. They will also be on site at the Olympics next month, as one of the PTs supporting the team. I’m assuming that the USST can get pretty much anyone they want to come provide physio services at literally the Olympics, and they have chosen Runners’ Edge Alaska for the least two Olympics now. (In the above, rather famous photo, Runners’ Edge Alaska founder Zuzana Rogers is on the right side, above Ida, between Sadie and the guy with the amazing mustache, I think that’s JP but don’t quote me on that. If you get to be in this photo, you’re important to the team.). Plus multiple world championships; I don’t know the precise number, but it’s at least three.
So, I’m a fan. The national team is a fan. The athletes are a fan (I’ve seen the handwritten thank-you notes in their office. There are a lot of them.)
If you live in Anchorage, they will see you in person. If you live in Alaska, they will see you via tele health (at the height of the pandemic they diagnosed and rectified a stride imbalance via a Zoom call and a closeup of my insoles not saying just saying). If you live in the Lower 48, scroll through their Instagram and you will find some valuable exercises. I hear it helps if you do them.
Really though, getting to and staying at the Olympics is expensive, particularly if you are starting from ten time zones away. I sincerely appreciate the support of Runners’ Edge Alaska in helping me do so. I will be acknowledging them in the opening of each article next month in our coverage of [global sporting event in Italy]. Thanks again to the whole team there, and go check them out.
