On Feb. 17, 2020, the starting gun fired for the start of the 19th running of the Mercedes Marathon in Birmingham. Veteran ultra-runner Donna Arrington, age 55, was in the field. She was on pace to finish strong until, at the halfway point at mile 13, Arrington began to feel sharp pain in her right leg.

When Jeremy Pritchett first visited the family medicine clinic at UAB Medicine’s Hoover location, he was thinking mostly about his kidneys. He had just had a kidney stone and Sumayah Abed, M.D., a practitioner at the Hoover clinic and assistant professor in UAB’s Department of Family and Community Medicine, was running follow-up tests.

Many adults are “weekend warriors”, in the sense that we pursue our most energetic activities and passions in our time off. Staying active whenever possible is important, but are you taking the most basic steps to limit your risk of injury and remain healthy in the weekends to come?

Being physically active is an important part of heart health, but how should one take care of their heart while playing sports or exercising?

The holidays are over, and now it’s training season for the 2020 Mercedes-Benz Marathon — a three-day event that caps off with the full 26-mile run on Sunday, February 16 at Railroad Park in downtown Birmingham.