If you want to become a faster runner, you’ll probably end up doing a lot of speedwork on a track. Or if you live in a hilly place, you might wish you had a nice flat track to run on. But how do you find one that’s open to the public? Turns out it’s easier than you might think. Many public high school tracks are available for the community to use. Call local schools I run on a local school track, and the way I found it was pretty straightforward. I phoned up the nearest high school, and asked whether they had a track that was open to the public. They said yes, so long as I come outside school hours; but they also suggested a different school in the district whose track has fewer evening events scheduled. That’s the track I now run on most often. (I've even bookmarked their sports schedule, so I can check for conflicts before leaving the house.) I've found that schools don't always put their track policy (or locations!) online, so an old-fashioned phone call really is the quickest way to this information. You can also visit the school in person—after hours, please—and look for signs that say when and whether the track is open to the public. Another great resource for finding tracks is Run Track Run , which lists tracks and running routes across the U.S. Some of the tracks have information listed, such as the type of surface, whether it’s open to the public, and whether it’s free to use. Check maps Oval running tracks are easy to spot on maps. I found another track near me just by looking for oval shapes on the Strava global heatmap (it highlights popular running routes). The satellite view on Google Maps is another great way to look for nearby tracks, as I did above. Most regulation-size outdoor running tracks surround a football or soccer field, and they’ll usually be at a school or sometimes a park or community center. They will be an oblong shape, curved around the ends, often with a red rubber surface and white lane lines visible when you zoom in. You may also find non-standard tracks around athletic fields or in parks; they are usually gravel surfaced and may not be a quarter mile exactly; I can think of one that is 0.2 miles, and a few I've seen that are half a mile. While I was traveling, I used maps to find this 1.125-mile running path in a Delaware park that used to be a horse racing track. What are the rules of running on a track? First, check for any posted rules or hours. School tracks are often closed to the public during school hours, but that still means evenings, weekends, and holiday breaks are fair game. Don’t expect that every school’s track will always be open, though. Private schools might not open theirs to the public, and public schools may still set a schedule or close the track for events. If the track is part of a park, gym, or community center, check their website or call to confirm who can use the track and when. Once you’re there, the most important rule is to stay in your lane (if there are marked lanes). Think of them like lanes on a highway: You can pass somebody if you give them enough room, and you should always look behind you before you change lanes. Don’t block a lane by stopping in the middle; find a spot off the track if you want to sit down to stretch. The faster people will run in the innermost lane, which means if you’re walking or warming up, you should stay in the outer lanes. Pay attention to the direction, too; usually everyone runs counter-clockwise. How do you do running workouts on a track? The track is there for anything you’d like to do, so there isn’t a specific procedure. But as a general rule, you’ll break down the work you’d like to do into small, measurable pieces. One lap of a regulation track (measured in the innermost lane) is 400 meters, almost exactly a quarter of a mile. It is totally fine to jog continuously the whole time you’re at the track, but more often people will use the track for interval work. You run fast for a short distance, then either walk to recover or stand around while you catch your breath. Then do another fast interval, and repeat the process until you’re ready to go home. Here’s a beginner-friendly workout you can do your first time on a track: Warm up with four laps around the track (1 mile). This can be a brisk walk, a slow, easy jog, or a mix of the two. You want to finish this step feeling warmed up and ready to work—not exhausted. Walk the curved part of the track (this is about 100 meters). Run the straight part of the track (this is also about 100 meters). Don’t go all-out, just keep up a strong, fast pace. Repeat steps 2 and 3 as many times as desired. One mile’s worth (four laps) will give you eight 100-meter runs, which is a good workout for your first day. You can do more later. Jog at least a lap or two to cool down, more if you like. Runners would call the above workout “8 x 100” since you are doing eight 100-meter runs. (The walking in between is considered the recovery.) Here are common distances for intervals: 100 m (the straightaway of the track) 200 m (the curve plus one straightaway, or half the track) 400 m (one lap) 800 m (two laps) In between the running portions of your workout, you can rest or walk for about the same amount of time it took you to run. For example, if you run a lap (400 meters) in about two minutes, you’d rest another two minutes before going again.Zachary Levi says his support for President-elect Donald Trump hasn’t resulted in “career suicide” after all. Appearing on Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast this week, the “Shazam!” actor shrugged off the implication that he’d been “canceled” by Hollywood for his endorsement of Trump in the 2024 election. “I hope I haven’t been canceled yet,” Levi said. “I mean, if it happens, it happens.” “I already had multiple jobs that I was in the process of shooting or that I have yet to shoot, and none of those have been compromised,” he added. When Maher pressed for clarification, Levi added, “None of my producers or any of the studios behind those films or projects have called and said, ‘Hey listen, this is a line too far, and we can’t have you associated with the project anymore.’ We’re all still full steam ahead on those.” Though Levi initially supported former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he formally endorsed Trump in September. At the time, he acknowledged that his stance could “very well could constitute career suicide” given the “very liberal” views of many Hollywood heavyweights. Just weeks later, the actor found himself on the receiving end of backlash from within the Broadway community when he used his former co-star Gavin Creel’s death to promote a conspiracy theory about COVID-19 vaccines. In a video posted to Instagram in October, Levi surmised that Creel, with whom he co-starred in the 2016 revival of “She Loves Me” on Broadway, “would still be alive” if he hadn’t gotten vaccinated against COVID-19. After suggesting that the COVID-19 vaccines were “forced on the American public” despite known side effects including “turbo cancers,” Levi said : “Without a shadow of a doubt, I believe that Gavin Creel would be alive right now — right fucking now — he would still be alive if that stuff didn’t get put into his body.” Creel, beloved by theater fans for his performances in “Hello, Dolly!” and “Into the Woods,” among other musicals, died of a rare and aggressive form of cancer in September. Levi’s claims were quickly condemned by a litany of fellow Broadway performers. Appearing on “ That’s A Gay Ass Podcast ” last week, actor Laura Benanti didn’t hold back when asked about her experience working on “She Loves Me” with Levi. “I never liked him,” Benanti said . “Everyone was like, ‘He’s so great!’ And I was like, ‘No, he’s not. He’s sucking up all the fucking energy in this room. He wants to mansplain everybody’s part to them.’” “For [Levi] to use [Creel’s] memory ― a person he was not friends with ― to use his memory for his political agenda and to watch him try to make himself cry until he had one single tear, which he did not wipe away, I was like, ‘Fuck you forever,’” she added. Other news outlets have retreated behind paywalls. At HuffPost, we believe journalism should be free for everyone. Would you help us provide essential information to our readers during this critical time? We can't do it without you. Can't afford to contribute? Support HuffPost by creating a free account and log in while you read. You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again . We view our mission to provide free, fair news as critically important in this crucial moment, and we can't do it without you. Whether you give once or many more times, we appreciate your contribution to keeping our journalism free for all. You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again . We view our mission to provide free, fair news as critically important in this crucial moment, and we can't do it without you. Whether you give just one more time or sign up again to contribute regularly, we appreciate you playing a part in keeping our journalism free for all. Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages. Benanti, a 2009 Tony Award winner for “Gypsy” known for her impressions of Melania Trump on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” also conceded that Levi’s initial claims about “career suicide” were dubious. “Christian, faith-based TV and film is huge. He’s going to be a huge fucking star in that realm,” she said. “He’s going to make more money than he ever has.” Listen to Zachary Levi’s “Club Random with Bill Maher” interview here . His comments on Trump begin around the 5:05 mark. Related From Our PartnerCEO killer suspect: golden boy who soured on US health system
While Donald Trump’s lock on the white evangelical vote is legendary, he and his campaign allies also wooed smaller religious groups, far from the mainstream.
By PETER SMITH A social-media tribute to Coptic Christians. A billboard in Amish country. A visit to a revered Jewish gravesite. While Donald Trump’s lock on the white evangelical vote is legendary, he and his campaign allies also wooed smaller religious groups, far from the mainstream. As it turned out, Trump won by decisive margins, but his campaign aggressively courted niche communities with the understanding that every vote could be critical, particularly in swing states. Voter surveys such as exit polls, which canvass broad swaths of the electorate, aren’t able to gauge the impact of such microtargeting, but some backers say the effort was worth it. Just one week before the election, Trump directed a post on the social-media platform X to Coptic Christians in the United States —- whose church has ancient roots in Egypt. He saluted their “Steadfast Faith in God, Perseverance through Centuries of Persecution and Love for this Great Country.” “This was the first time seeing a major U.S. presidential candidate address the community in this manner,” said Mariam Wahba, a Coptic Christian and research analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based research institute. “It was really a profound moment.” She said many Copts share the conservative social views of other Christian groups in the Republican constituency, and they may already have been Trump supporters. But the posting reinforced those bonds. Coptic bishops sent the president-elect congratulations after his victory and cited their “shared social and family values.” Some Assyrian Christians — another faith group with Middle Eastern roots — similarly bonded with Trump, whose mispronunciation of “Assyrian” at a rally created a viral video moment and drew attention to their support. Sam Darmo, a Phoenix real estate agent and co-founder of Assyrians for Trump, said many community members cited the economy, illegal immigration and other prominent voter issues. They echoed other conservative Christians’ concerns, he said, on issues such as abortion, gender identity and religious expression in public. But he said Trump supported various Middle Eastern Christians recovering from the Islamic State group’s oppressive rule. Darmo also credited Massad Boulos, father-in-law to Trump’s daughter Tiffany, for mobilizing various Middle Eastern Christian groups, including Chaldean Catholics, and other voters, particularly in Michigan, such as Muslims. “He brought all these minority groups together,” he said. “We’re hoping to continue that relationship.” But members of Middle Eastern-rooted Christian groups, and their politics, are far from monolithic, said Marcus Zacharia, founder of Progressive Copts, a program of Informed Immigrants, an organization that promotes dialogue on sensitive topics among such groups in the United States and Canada. He said many younger community members question Trump’s stances on issues such as immigration, and sense that conservatives sometimes tokenize them by focusing on the plight of persecuted Christians in the Middle East while neglecting wider issues of repression in countries there that the U.S. supports. He said there needs to be more informed dialogue across the political divide in these communities. “There is no more high time than these next four years to have that way of conducting conversations,” he said. Republicans also made an aggressive push for Amish voters , particularly in the swing state of Pennsylvania, where they are most numerous at about 92,000 (many below voting age). The GOP has made similar efforts in the past, even though researchers have found that less than 10% of them typically vote, due to their separatism from society. But Republicans used billboards, mailers, ads and door-to-door campaigner to drive turnout in Lancaster County, home base to the nation’s largest Amish settlement. On Election Day, Amish voters Samuel Stoltzfus and his wife Lillian Stoltzfus said they were supporting Trump, citing their anti-abortion beliefs. “We basically look at it as murder,” Stoltzfus, 31, said outside a polling center in the Lancaster County community of New Holland, where dozens of other members of the local Amish community voted. Trump has wavered on the issue, dismaying some abortion opponents, though many have said Republicans still align more closely to their views. Stolzfus added: “Make America great again and keep the moral values,” he said. “Let’s go back to the roots.” Steven Nolt, a history professor at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster College who studies the Amish and their voting patterns, said that while it’s too early to say definitively without further research, he doesn’t see evidence of a larger turnout this year. Lancaster County as a whole — most of which is not Amish — is a GOP stronghold that Trump won handily, though both parties’ votes edged up from 2020, according to unofficial results posted by the Pennsylvania Department of State. Trump’s biggest increases were in urban or suburban areas with few Amish, while some areas with larger Amish populations generally saw a modest increase in the Trump vote, said Nolt, director of the college’s Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. “Bottom line, percentage-wise, not much change in the parts of Lancaster County where the Amish live,” he said. Trump directly reached out to members of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, a prominent and highly observant branch of Orthodox Judaism. Related Articles National Politics | Attorneys want the US Supreme Court to say Mississippi’s felony voting ban is cruel and unusual National Politics | Trump convinced Republicans to overlook his misconduct. But can he do the same for his nominees? National Politics | Trump gave Interior nominee one directive for a half-billion acres of US land: ‘Drill.’ National Politics | Trump’s team is delaying transition agreements. What does it mean for security checks and governing? National Politics | Judge delays Trump hush money sentencing in order to decide where case should go now On Oct. 7, the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war, Trump made a symbolically resonant visit to the “Ohel,” the burial site of the movement’s revered late leader, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson. Wearing a yarmulke, the traditional Jewish skullcap, Trump, who has Jewish family members, brought a written prayer to the Ohel and laid a small stone at the grave in keeping with tradition. The site in New York City, while particularly central to Chabad adherents, draws an array of Jewish and other visitors, including politicians. About two-thirds of Jewish voters overall supported Trump’s opponent, Democrat Kamala Harris, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters. But the Trump campaign has made a particular outreach to Orthodox Jews, citing issues including his policies toward Israel in his first administration. Rabbi Yitzchok Minkowitz of Chabad Lubavitch of Southwest Florida said it was moving for him to see images of Trump’s visit. “The mere fact that he made a huge effort, obviously it was important to him,” he said. Associated Press journalist Luis Henao contributed.ALTOONA, Pennsylvania — Luigi Mangione, the suspect charged with murder in the shooting of a top UnitedHealth executive, briefly struggled with officers and angrily shouted while being escorted into a Pennsylvania courthouse on Tuesday, as a clearer picture of his motives began to emerge a day after his arrest ended a massive manhunt. Mangione, 26, turned toward a group of reporters and yelled in part, “... completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people!” before deputies pushed him away. It was not clear to what he was referring. At the court hearing, his defense lawyer told a judge that Mangione would oppose extradition to New York, where he is charged with murder and other crimes. That decision could delay the process by weeks but is unlikely to block his eventual transfer; for now, Mangione will remain in jail in Pennsylvania, where he faces gun and forgery charges. His attorney, Tom Dickey, said at a news conference that Mangione planned to plead not guilty to the charges. Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth’s insurance arm, one of the largest health insurers in the U.S., was shot dead last Wednesday morning outside a hotel in Manhattan in what police said was a targeted attack, sparking a manhunt that led to Mangione’s arrest. More clues about his possible motivation were coming to light on Tuesday. When arrested, Mangione was in possession of a handwritten manifesto that offered insight into his mindset, according to police. The New York Times reported that an internal New York City Police report analyzing the document concluded that Mangione viewed the killing as a justified response to what he believed to be corruption in the health care industry. “These parasites simply had it coming,” the manifesto said, according to the Times. Mangione suffered from chronic back pain that limited his daily life, according to friends, his social media postings and other news reports. His profile on X shows a background image of an x-ray with what appears to be screws and plates inserted in a lower back. An employee at TrueCar told Reuters that Mangione worked at the car-buying website as a data engineer from 2022 to late 2023. In mid-2023, Mangione took about two months off for what the employee’s manager described as back-related issues. The employee, who asked not to be named, described Mangione as “incredibly smart” and very friendly to his co-workers. He said that the company offered employees health insurance through UnitedHealth as well as other choices, such as Aetna. From January through June 2022, Mangione lived at the Surfbreak co-living community in Honolulu, where he led a book club and surfed, hiked and rock-climbed, the founder of the group, R.J. Martin, told the Hawaiian outlet Civil Beat. Martin said Mangione had suffered back pain caused by misaligned vertebrae pinching Mangione’s spinal cord, and he left for the mainland at some point for surgery. But he went “radio silent” in June or July, Martin told Civil Beat. Mangione never showed any indication of violence, Martin later told MSNBC. “The Luigi that I knew is completely incompatible with an assassin,” he said, describing him as funny, kind and thoughtful. At one point, Mangione suggested Surfbreak’s book club read the manifesto of Ted Kaczynski — the U.S. domestic bomber known as the Unabomber — as a joke, according to Martin. On the book-themed social media site Goodreads, a poster with Mangione’s name praised Kaczynski’s book “Industrial Society and Its Future” as “prescient” about modern society, called him an “extreme political revolutionary” and suggested violence was a legitimate form of resistance in some circumstances. Mangione was spotted at a McDonald’s on Monday by an employee who thought he looked like the gunman in surveillance images released by police. Mangione, an Ivy League graduate who was also the valedictorian of a private all-boys school in Maryland, had a loaded ghost gun — an untraceable firearm assembled from parts — and a silencer, officials said on Monday. Both the weapon and his clothing closely resembled those used by the gunman. He also had multiple fake identifications, including a fraudulent New Jersey ID that matched the one used by the gunman to check into a Manhattan hostel days before the shooting, according to authorities. Mangione’s family released a statement saying they knew only what had been reported in the media. “Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest,” the family said in a statement posted to the X account of Maryland lawmaker Nino Mangione. “We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved.” The gunman managed to elude capture for days after the attack last Wednesday outside the Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan. Thompson’s killing unleashed a wave of frustration from Americans struggling to afford medical care and those who have been denied claims or care. Thompson, a father of two, had been CEO of UnitedHealthcare since April 2021, part of a 20-year career with the company. He had been in New York to attend the company’s annual investor conference.