Cat Hair Pills: Do They Make You Run Faster?
**UPDATE** The folks at CatHairPills wrote us back with this email, and low and behold, they just launched CatHairPills"Sport":
"Training for a 50K race?! Cat Hair Pil-grim, the Cat Hair Pills in the sky are aligning! We just launched CatHairPillsSport, a Cat Hair Pill solution designed with your active lifestyle in mind! You can learn more about it at CatHairPills.tumblr.com. We would be very pleased to provide you with a free sample Cat Hair Pill. Although Cat B has an athletic build, we suggest Cat A for your training purposes. Cat A is known for her wise bravery and admirable persistence, qualities that will serve you well in your race.
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Free-Range Organic Cat Hair Pills. Yes. So Brooklyn.
Last week, we saw this flyer
for "CAT HAIR PILLS" taped to a lamp post outside one of our favorite cafe/bar, 61Local, on Bergen Street in Brooklyn...
This made us stop and not only crack up laughing, but made us wonder -- would we take these if we heard they "did" something? What if this was a great magic pill? What if Cat Hair is the new kale? We'll be the first to admit we'll try almost anything -- key word, "almost" -- to help improve our running, fitness, health, body, skin, looks, weight, and so on. Try almost anything that might help make us run faster, stronger, longer, farther, recover better, feel better, look better. (Admit it, you've tried some random crap too). Seems everyone's looking for the miracle cure, the magic pill, the easy answer. And, mannnn, is there a market for it all! What's with our obsession for the newest ____ pill/craze/fad/diet?? We know at least one person who's tried one or more of the following, whether for a brief moment or years:
- Paleo. Vegan. Fruitarian. Watermelon diet. Wine and almonds diet. Cupcake diet. Himbasha bread (specifically, Meb Keflezighi told us this during this chat via NYC Daily News). Kale and Avocado diet. Omnivore. Vegetarian. Carnivore. Pescatarian. Gluten Free. Gluten Galore.
- Gels. DIY gels. Pureed foods gels. Nut butter gels. Pizza gels. Bananas only. Cacao. No race fuel.
- Gatorade. Coconut water. Flat Coke. Himalayan Salt water. Watermelon water. Maple water. No water.
- Ginger. Turmeric. Cayenne. Advil. Tylenol. Vicodin. Bourbon. Beer. Weed. Venus Fly Trap.
- $500 GPS watch. No GPS watch. Two watches. No watch. Smartphone. Compass and sun.
- Compression socks. Compression sleeves. Compression tops, bottoms, underwear. (Hey, OnlyAtoms does make some nice compression shorts...)
- Minimalistic running shoes. Maximal cushioning shoes. Running barefoot. Running sandals. Orthodics.
- Walk-running. Speed walking. LSD (Long Slow Distance). Backwards running. Sideways running. Not running at all.
You totally know what we mean, right? And we didn't even get into all different kinds of workouts, specific kinds of running techniques, training plans, and the plethora of types cross-training and new workouts that are out there. (Hey, we're still big advocates of dancing as great cross-training and marathon training...)
We could go on and on with this list, but really, CAT PILLS? Obviously this is a Brooklyn-esque-prank-and-or-art-project, but we're going to try to get some anyway and report back here on the results. We are training for the Burning Man 50K Ultramarathon, and do want another PR, so, you know...we'll try (almost) anything. We'll let you know how it goes. The CHP distributor has yet to email us back!