Michael Wardian is what you'd call a mega-marathoner, running an average of 50 grueling races a year, ranging from the typical 26.2-miler to a 150-mile ultra-marathon in the desert. Though he's won the JFK 50-miler, and the Washington, D.C. marathon three times and holds the world record for fastest marathon on a treadmill. On November 22, he'll be competing for a title he regards as especially important -- world's fastest marathon with a jogging stroller.

Wardian, 35, currently holds the record. He achieved it in 2007 at the Frederick Marathon in Maryland with his then nine-month-old son Pierce in tow, at a time of 2:42:21. But now, with the addition of Wardian's second son -- 11-month-old Grant (pictured with his dad) -- the marathoner thought it was only fair to go after the record again. "We didn't want it to be something one child had and not the other," he said.

Fall marathon season also happens to coincide with the release of the seasonal flu vaccine. While offices, pharmacies and schools around the country are offering up the vaccine, many runners, concerned about whether the shot will negatively impact their performance, are questioning whether they should join the masses and line up for the shot.

I understand the concern. I shied away from the vaccine in the week leading up to running a marathon because I worried that a sore arm wouldn't be conducive to a strong running performance. But I've heard from runners who have also avoided the vaccine over fears that it might leave them feeling sluggish, tired or sick.

A typical marathon runner puts so much thought and planning into preparing for the race, yet gives little consideration to recovering from it. The physical and emotional challenges of running don't stop when you cross the finish line. Recovery from a marathon can take weeks, even months. And just like you have a strategy for every other aspect of the finishing the race, it's important to have a strategy for recovering from it, too. On the heels of the world's biggest marathon in New York City on Sunday, I thought I'd turn my attention from running preparation to recovery.

After a marathon, your muscles are depleted and inflamed, you've lost fluids and stiffness begins settling in almost immediately. Experts tend to agree that rehydrating with water until urine is pale yellow is the way to go. They also say that eating a meal with a mix of carbs, protein and sodium within an hour of finishing the race is crucial, as is eating small, frequent meals that day. Another important factor is fighting the urge to lie around, as walking around for at least 10 to 15 minutes every few hours the rest of race day will help ease muscle discomfort. But there's no way around it, the few days following the marathon are going to be tough. I decided to consult some other experts for their advice. Here, real marathoners share their best tips for getting through the pain and stiffness, and for beating post-marathon blues.

Edward Norton has shin splints. But he's hoping that resting his legs this week will leave him recharged and pain-free for the New York City Marathon, which he is running along with nearly 40,000 others (myself included) this Sunday.

It will be the first marathon for the esteemed actor, and also for the majority of his 30-member team, who are running to raise money for the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust. He became acquainted with the trust 10 years ago on a trip to Kenya, and says he was so impressed by the work being done by the organization to protect the Maasai homeland, he decided to get involved -- eventually becoming head of the board.

Steve Baker crossed the Denver Marathon finish line on Sunday along with thousands of other runners, an accomplishment made even more remarkable and inspiring considering that just over a year ago Baker was paralyzed.

Baker, 33, became paralyzed after diving into a swimming pool and hitting the bottom with his head. He fractured two cervical vertebrae and woke with no feeling in his arms or legs and wearing a halo brace. Some doctors were optimistic, however, saying that the damage to the spinal cord was "incomplete," meaning there was some chance that Baker might walk again. But other doctors told him he would never walk, use his hands or sit up on his own. "The biggest motivator for me is being told I can't do something," Baker says. "The first thing I told my mom in the hospital is that I would walk again." Baker, who at the time was in training for the 2008 Denver Marathon, made running the 2009 race his goal.

Tom Cruise and wife Katie Holmes were recently photographed running together. My jaw dropped when I read that Cruise, who was ahead of the Mrs., turned around and yelled at her to run "harder" and "faster." I'm pretty sure that if I had been in the same situation, with my boyfriend commanding me to run faster, I would have turned around and run in the other direction.

Running with a partner has been demonstrated to help boost motivation. Knowing you have another person depending on you to show up helps keep you honest. Plus, just having someone to talk to and suffer through the tough times with you during the run can help keep you going when you might otherwise stop. Running with your romantic partner, however, can put a whole new and complicated spin on the dynamic.

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There's nothing sexy about today's topic. But runner's diarrhea (characterized by loose stools that occur during or immediately after a run) affects anywhere from a quarter to a third of runners. Considering the large numbers impacted by it, I find that runners don't talk about it much. I know it's not exactly appropriate water-cooler convo, but the problem is uncomfortable, inconvenient and clearly pervasive.

"Many races are lost in the port a pottie," says Nancy Clark, sports nutritionist and author of "Nancy Clark' s Food Guide for Marathoners." And because you've all trained too hard for too long to let your digestive system dictate your race-day performance, I spoke to Clark to understand the causes of runner's trots and how to treat it.

There's a reason there's no such thing as cyclist's trots. "It's the jostling of the intestines during running that stimulates motility," says Clark. Cycling and other exercises, where the body is stable, don't have the same effect running does. Of course, not everyone who runs will have stomach trouble. "People have different sensitivities in their digestive tracts and we're all metabolically individual. It's similar to how some people are wired all day after a cup of coffee and others aren't." Also at risk for diarrhea from running are new runners and women, whose hormonal fluctuations make them more susceptible.

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Given that birth control pills have a wide range of well-documented side effects, including bloating, mood changes and sluggishness, all of which can affect your quality of life to varying degrees, it seems reasonable to assume that your daily dose of hormones could also impact your running performance. A study released earlier this year led by researchers at Texas A&M seemed to give credence to the idea that the pill takes a toll on physical performance, finding that women who took birth control pills developed 40 percent less muscle mass than women who did not.

I wondered exactly what role the pill plays in running performance and went to Rebecca Battista, associate professor at Appalachian State University in the Department of Health, Leisure, and Exercise Science. "Most of the literature around the menstrual cycle and performance is all negative," says Battista. "And while there's little agreement on the impact of the pill, it doesn't seem to benefit or hurt performance," she says.

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Compression socks -- the season's trendiest running accessory -- are essentially pricey support hose for your calves. The snug-fitting, over-the-calf socks have been used in hospitals for years to aid circulation in patients following surgery, decreasing the risk of a clot forming, which can lead to strokes or heart attacks. So why is Paula Radcliffe wearing them?

The brains behind the socks figured if they could help an immobile person with circulation, imagine what they could do for a runner. Improved blood circulation in the legs means more blood for the heart and a greater cardiac output, which translates into better performance -- at least in theory.

A study published in the May issue of Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise examined the effect of compression socks on endurance athletes to see if they had any influence on performance. The findings? There were no beneficial effects. The compression clothing didn't increase endurance, and there were no physiological improvements.

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Anyone who's had to keep themselves going through a 15-mile run in the middle of summer or dead of winter understands that mental motivation is a pivotal part in determining whether you'll finish that long run or not. No matter how well-tuned your legs are, if you don't think you can run that far, you probably won't.

As I've struggled to advance my own training on my path to running a marathon this fall, I haven't been able to determine if it's my body or my head holding me back. I asked myself all the key questions to determine whether I'm over-training -- I'm not. And I know I'm uninjured so I've decided my stumbling block is mostly mental. Aside from giving myself half-hearted pep talks, I wondered if there was another mind-trick I could use to help me out of this performance slump. Could hypnosis be the answer or is that complete crazy talk?

The word hypnosis always conjures images of a creepy, bearded therapist waving a watch to send someone into a trance-like state. From there, the person, under the spell of the therapist, might either cluck like a chicken or assassinate politicians. Despite its shady representation in popular culture, however, hypnosis is a widely-accepted, highly-successful technique that has been proven to help people quit smoking, lose weight and improve athletic performance.

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A recent study on addiction, withdrawal and running would lead any runner to ask this very question. The way the findings have been reported in popular media outlets essentially draws the conclusion that intensive running equals addiction. Aaron Stegner, research scientist at the Exercise Psychology Laboratory at University of Wisconsin, Madison, takes exception with this overly-simplistic view.

In the study, researchers at Tufts University housed one group of rats in an exercise wheel, while another group had no exercise wheel. All the rats were given Naloxone, a drug that produces immediate withdrawal symptoms. The typically-active rats demonstrated significantly higher levels of withdrawal, similar to those of drug addicts, than the inactive rats. Why? "Exercise, like drugs of abuse, leads to the release of neurotransmitters such as endorphins and dopamine, which are involved with a sense of reward," noted lead author and Tufts professor of psychology Robin Kanarek in LiveScience.

Sure, you seek a runners' high to keep you going and miss running when you can't fit it in, but you're probably not addicted to running. Here's why:

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The September issue of Runner's World profiled Tera Moody, a chronic insomniac and one of the country's best marathoners. You would never link sleep deprivation and strong running performance, yet Moody's success in itself poses an interesting question for all of us who struggle to get the right amount of rest: Just how much sleep do you need to run well?

I mentioned Moody and her ability to function well on little sleep to Dr. Lewis Maharam, sports medicine specialist practicing in New York and medical director of the New York City Marathon. "That's good for her," he said. "But generally if you're sleep deprived you're not going to do anything as well," he added.

Now, the idea that you actually need sleep to function optimally is probably a big no duh, but what is surprising is that what constitutes sleep deprived really depends on you. "Everyone is a research project unto themselves," says Maharam. "Some people really need eight and 10 hours of sleep, some only need six. It's up to you to figure out what you need to perform your best." Good news for you late-night TV fans, like myself: If you've been forcing yourself to go to bed earlier thinking that additional miles requires additional sleep that may not be the case.

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People always think that because I run I must lead some über healthy life. Trust me, I'm not the model of health I should be. And while I'm trying to turn over a new leaf -- cutting back on cocktails and French fries and trying to get a little extra sleep -- I learned from speaking with Dr. Christine Gerbstadt, spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association (who also happens to be a triathlete), that I have a whole slew of other bad habits I need to break. Here is Gerbstadt's list of runners' worst habits along with a little guidance for kicking them.

Avoiding Whole Grains
Many runners avoid eating whole grains because they think they'll be doing their stomachs a favor by eating only easily digestible white breads. The truth of the matter is, running itself can cause GI problems and avoiding whole grains isn't necessarily the answer to your tummy woes. "White flour is closer to simple sugar than it is to carbohydrates," says Gerbstadt. "And your body will process it so quickly, you won't get the benefits of it during your run," she says. "While a little white flour isn't terrible, it's best to mix it with some whole grains," she says.

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You may have been expecting to shed a few pounds when you ramped up your mileage in preparation for a marathon. It makes perfect sense considering that a 15-mile run would burn about 1,500 calories in a 150-pound person, not to mention your shorter maintenance runs during the week, all of which add up to some serious calorie-burning potential. Not so for me, though. As I'm entering Week 7 of my training, I've put on a good five pounds and the same thing happened the last time I trained for a marathon.

I talked to some fellow runners-in-training only to find they were also lamenting their growing waistlines. Between energy gels, carb-heavy recovery meals and all those sports drinks, I'm sure I'm consuming some (okay lots of) extra calories, but how's a runner supposed to properly fuel up without overdoing it?

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If you're a drinker and a jogger, you've no doubt experienced that highly unpleasant run the morning after you had one too many -- you're tired, out of it and full of regret as you try to drag your sluggish legs uphill. Some of the most seasoned runners I know swear off alcohol when training, and one of the biggest complaints I hear from coworkers and friends preparing for marathons is that they simply don't perform well if they drink while they train. On the other hand, there are running clubs around the country founded on the principal -- run hard, drink harder. And I've seen people drink beer the night before a marathon who were no worse off for it. My own unscientific experiments trying to combine running and alcohol have led me to believe the two don't mix, but is it possible that, in some cases, alcohol gives running a boost?