Britt retweeted
running 2:11 on a snapped Achilles is absolutely nuts
According to Agence France-Presse, 🇪🇹 Tigst Assefa successfully underwent surgery today in Munich to repair the fully torn Achilles tendon that she suffered en route to her 2:11:04 victory in Sunday’s Berlin Marathon — the third-fastest women’s marathon in history.
Her manager, Gianni Demadonna, said she started feeling pain around 31K and it escalated after 40K.
“The tendon was completely gone when she ran the last two kilometers,” Demadonna told AFP.
He expects her to miss about seven months of training ahead of a long recovery. ⬇️
Britt retweeted
The nicest weather in the USA today will be in and around Miles City, MT, Valentine, NE, and Philadelphia, PA.
Britt retweeted
Finnish scientists trucked in real forest dirt and grass and laid it over the gravel at four daycare yards. They let the kids dig around in it for a month. The blood tests came back with changes the researchers hadn’t expected to see so fast or so clear.
The study ran at ten daycares in two Finnish cities with 75 kids aged three to five. Four of the yards got the forest treatment: about a tennis court worth of soil and grass laid over the gravel, plus planters and peat blocks the kids could dig and climb on. Three others stuck with their normal gravel yards. The last three were daycares where the kids were already visiting real forests every day.
After one month, the variety of bacteria living on the kids’ skin shot up, and the kind that helps train the skin’s immune defenses jumped the most. Their gut bacteria started to look like the gut bacteria of the forest-visiting kids. Their blood showed more of the immune cells whose job is to keep the body from freaking out at harmless stuff like pollen and peanuts, and overall inflammation dropped. The kids on the plain gravel yards showed none of this.
Childhood asthma in the US doubled between 1980 and 1995. Food allergies in kids jumped 50 percent between 1997 and 2011, then jumped another 50 percent between 2007 and 2021. And peanut allergies in one-year-olds tripled between 2001 and 2017.
The Finnish researchers think one of the reasons is simple: kids today don’t get dirty enough. 37 percent of American preschoolers now spend an hour or less outside on a normal weekday. Their immune systems are getting trained in environments stripped of the bacteria humans have always lived around.
Aki Sinkkonen, who led the study, put it in plain words: “It would be best if children could play in puddles and everyone could dig organic soil.” The Finnish government is now helping pay for daycares across the country to make the same changes.
Britt retweeted
Mothers are some of the hardest working people on earth...often doing a 24/7 job, 7 days a week, for many many years. Often, on top of other work they do.
Shout out to all the Moms that care deeply, love fiercely, and do so much work in shaping future generations.
Britt retweeted
Marathon registration has become its own race.
The running boom is very real.
CIM is in December and already sold out.
Houston is in January and already sold out.
Philly is in November and just sold out.
If you’re eyeing a big non-major marathon, sign up way earlier than feels reasonable.
Britt retweeted
Once in a generation, the marathon gods shine on Boston.
1994. 2011. And now 2026. The first big tailwind day of the supershoe era.
The times are hard to comprehend. What's not hard to comprehend: John Korir is now a bona fide Boston legend.
letsrun.com/news/2026/04/fas…
Britt retweeted
Perfect conditions (40s, 9-10 mph tailwind) led to the fastest times in race history at 2026 Boston Marathon.
Before today, only 4 American marathoners had broken 2:06.
Five did it in Boston today -- Talbi, Hicks, Young, Ford, & Klecker.
Britt retweeted
Opus 4.7 feels more intelligent, agentic, and precise than 4.6. It took a few days for me to learn how to work with it effectively, to fully take advantage of its new capabilities.
Will post a few more tips throughout the day, starting with this blog post: claude.com/blog/best-practic…
Britt retweeted
What's the best predictor of world-class performance in runners?
Volume of Training.
You've got to spend a lot of time doing the thing if you want to get good at just about anything.
Britt retweeted
The fastest woman alive flew to rural Australia to chase down amateurs on a grass field for $27,500.
The Stawell Gift is a 148-year-old handicap sprint held every Easter in a town of 6,000 people in western Victoria. 120 meters. On grass. Uphill. Lanes separated by rope, not paint. The twist: slower runners get up to a 10-meter head start. The world champion starts at zero.
Richardson gave away 10 meters to her closest competitor. Some runners started 25 meters ahead. She had to close that gap over 120 meters of grass while running uphill. She won her heat in 13.8 seconds.
In 144 years of the men's race, only two men have ever won from scratch. In the women's race (started 1989), only two women. The handicap system is specifically designed so the fastest runner should lose.
The race started in 1878 at the end of the Australian gold rush. The distance, 120 meters, comes from the gap between two pubs in Sheffield, England, where professional sprinting began. Competitors historically trained by chasing kangaroos.
737 athletes entered this year. Prize money: $40,000 AUD. Last year they paid Australia's teenage sprint star Gout Gout $50,000 just to show up. He got eliminated in the semis. The handicap ate him alive.
Richardson said it felt like being a kid again, playing tag. The woman who runs 10.65 described the hardest race on her 2026 calendar as "playing rabbit."
Britt retweeted
🇺🇸 Talk about an in-flight movie upgrade no airline could ever plan: witnessing Artemis II’s liftoff from 35,000 feet above Florida.
Britt retweeted
Replying to @wongmjane @BenLesh
Mistakes happen. As a team, the important thing is to recognize it’s never an individuals’s fault — it’s the process, the culture, or the infra.
In this case, there was a manual deploy step that should have been better automated. Our team has made a few improvements to the automation for next time, a couple more on the way.
Britt retweeted
Two years ago, almost 0 schools were interested in even considering going phone free.
Now, whole school systems are phone free. The rest are scrambling to get on board
We owe @JonHaidt a tremendous debt of gratitude.
What he achieved - this quickly - is almost unimaginable.
The Anxious Generation was published two years ago today, in a very different world. Back then, the most common objection I got was resignation: "The train has left the station." "You can't put toothpaste back in the tube." "It's how the kids connect today."
Today, the world looks very different. It turns out that if our kids were all on a train and we learned it was heading toward a collapsed bridge, we'd find a way to stop it and bring them safely back to the station. That’s what’s happening now.
After the historic verdicts in Los Angeles and New Mexico, today is a great day to reflect on the capacity of people in democratic societies to take action, even when opposing some of the most powerful corporations in history. We're getting access to the courts. We're getting phone-free schools. We're seeing whole neighborhoods letting kids out to play, unsupervised, which is what we older folk all remember as the best part of childhood.
So I want to recognize:
--The mothers (and, right behind them, fathers) who rose up by the millions and powered the movement.
--The farsighted governors and legislators in red states and blue states who have been innovating on policy solutions.
--The leaders of a dozen of nations, who are raising the age to 16 for opening social media accounts (with a special shoutout to Australia, for going first).
--The teachers and school administrators who had their classrooms disrupted for 15 years, and who are now eager to think through new solutions as screens have taken over and obstructed learning.
--The grassroots organizations who have been dedicating their efforts to advocate for all of the above in their local communities.
--The millions of members of Gen Z who have been rising up, demanding agency over how they spend their lives in the digital era, and finding better ways to connect in real life.
And one final group: the survivor parents--the ones you saw in those pictures of people embracing on the front steps of the LA courthouse. I have met many over the years. I am in awe of their courage and tenacity, their willingness to tell their stories of loss, over and over again, to different audiences, in the hope that no other parent would have to endure what they have endured. At long last, juries and legislatures are hearing you, and are acting.
Together, we are calling the train back to the station. Together, we are rolling back the phone based childhood and reclaiming life in the real world.
The work continues. If you’re not already involved, join us: anxiousgeneration.com/join
Britt retweeted
🌉 @DRPA_PAandNJ will host a FREE 100 year anniversary event for the Ben Franklin Bridge on July 11.
The bridge will close to car traffic and invites people to walk the bridge, and enjoy food trucks, live music and more family friendly activities.
Info: drpa.org/bfb100




































