Is there one workout you’re missing out on? And is it a rest day?
In November 2024, physician, athlete, screen personality, and advocate Tricia Robredo celebrated a milestone in her running journey, completing one of the seven world major marathons, the New York City marathon.
It was a journey followed by experienced and new runners alike. Robredo’s story, given her accessible circumstances—maintaining a day job, taking on further studies, sharing her advocacies, finding time for social and family life—is one that resonated with many recreational athletes.
In late January 2025, however, Robredo posted on Instagram an alarming development in her running career: Bone stress injuries on both legs following the NYC marathon. She wrote, “I was both amused and horrified to learn I ran a marathon in that state, but mostly grateful it wasn’t worse.”
In a vulnerable moment, she proceeded to talk about how the injury was part of a larger period of healing from a period of “disordered eating and compensatory over-exercising.”
Robredo acknowledged how despite following a training plan, some self-harsh habits were hard to kick, before expressing the wish “to come back more balanced and reasonable [laughs] so I can keep running [‘til] I’m old & gray.”
It’s real talk like this amid the hype that anchors Robredo’s fans while also showing many that their struggles are never borne alone.
The rest makes history
Like Robredo, Alexandra Vergara, MD, is also a practicing doctor who runs recreationally. She’s also been following Robredo’s journey: Cheering her on and empathizing with her long before NYC, when Robredo was taking on shorter races.
As a doctor, athlete, and woman who’s shared similar struggles, Vergara counts Robredo as a legitimate idol, someone not just popular, but real.
“Something elite and recreational athletes should look out for is overtraining syndrome,” Vergara shares, continuing “adequate rest days prevent serious long-term injuries and ensure stable energy levels and mental sharpness. It’s all about working smart, not hard! Rest days are key to hitting those PBs (personal bests).”
In 2024, Vergara took part in the annual Trilogy Run, designed to condition runners via three races of increasing distances to get better at the sport. There are distances revolving around 5 to 10 kilometers, but the most popular “trilogy” is the one that builds up towards the Big 42 via a 16K, 21K, and 32K run, each roughly two months apart.
Months after the Trilogy 32K, Vergara also ran her Big 42, the annual Asics Marathon Manila. The doctor shares that the 32 was the more difficult and “humbling” race, illustrating how prior to it, she had the mindset that “real runners” never stopped to walk or *gasp* pause, but that changed at the 25-kilometer mark—her longest distance yet.
Laughing, she recalls how members of her run club saw her walking at segments, and she shrugged sheepishly and they grinned knowingly.
She expected the same grueling experience at Asics but discovered that she ran all 42 kilometers less haggard and with a relatively decent time. She chalks it up to having seen the value in slowing down and sometimes taking a full break during her training sessions and the marathon itself.
Carbs over carbon
And when it’s time to roll up the blanket and roll out the exercise mat, Victoria Sekley, another running physician also believes in the boring.
Aside from being a doctor of physical therapy, she’s also a “runfluencer” whose grid is dominated not so much by product placements but memes. What better way to advocate, right?
One meme carousel points out that carbs work better than carbon-plated shoes. A lot of her content aims to sift through the hype of the current running boom (“try this workout, this diet, try to run like this, try this gel, shoe, visor”) and unearth kernels of truth that apparently are often not as marketable.
The themes of her posts, while humorous, revolve around showing that there are few magic bullets in running, well, except maybe for more sleep. Like Robredo, she also trained amid injury as discussed in a number of her posts.
In one of the few product placements decking her grid—advertising her coaching app—a caption reads: “I’ve been a PT almost 10 years and I can honestly say that the majority of the exercises on here [in Instagram] will do nothing for you. And it’s not because the exercise is bad or wrong, [but] simply because of the context it’s given in. Runners who are successful in building strength are the ones who repeat the same boring, mundane, foundational exercises consistently. There is no secret and it doesn’t have to be complicated!”
A previous post is more tongue-in-cheek: A “work out of the day” reel but with nothing new, just “boring” stuff we already know because apparently consistency (of rest, too) is, as the old saying goes, key.
“Spokes make the wheel,” the “Tao Te Ching” says, before adding that, “it’s the center that makes it move. The next stanza in that same verse goes, “you can mold clay into a vessel, but its empty space makes it useful.”
Just last week, in late March 2025, Robredo posted an Instagram story, now saved to her “running” highlights: She was given “the all clear” after “16 weeks completely off running.”