I first became aware of eco-running this past spring when my urban neighborhood, Riverwest, thawed out, and a winter’s worth of litter emerged from the melting gray snow banks. Every spring the neighborhood has to deal with the garbage that the thousands of people passing through insist on leaving behind. This year, however, we were introduced to a new, simple and ingenious approach to the clean up, courtesy of local resident and endurance runner, Sam Huber – aka The Eco-Runner.

Sam incorporates scooping up litter into his running regimen and is on a mission to convert people to serving their environment by simply picking up the trash in their path. Sam’s grassroots project is getting national attention and attracting new eco-runners (or in my case, eco-walkers) every day.

Visit Eco-Runner to follow Sam’s progress and learn more about how to green your exercise routine.

Last week, Morning Edition on NPR included a fascinating story about “whether our perception of how much exercise we are getting has any effect on how our bodies actually look.”

To do this, Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer studied hotel maids, 67% of whom felt they didn’t exercise, despite walking all day and lugging heavy equipment around.

When told they exceeded the surgeon general’s guidelines for fitness, they started losing weight.

Read or listen to the story here:
NPR | MORNING EDITION | Hotel Maids Challenge the Placebo Effect by Alix Spiegel