Contributing

This is an evidence-based knowledge base on distance running, published at running.wiki. Contributions are welcome, provided they keep it that way. The rules below exist to protect the one thing that makes it worth reading: every claim is traceable to a source, and the editorial line answers to the evidence rather than to anyone’s commercial interest.

This file is the full guide to how the knowledge base is written: the editorial stance, the page types, the evidence grades and the house style. (CLAUDE.md is a short operational brief for the AI assistant used to maintain the bundle, and points back here for the rules.)

Editorial stance

Heavy on the things that move the needle for most runners; light on the marginal and the marketing. A poorly-evidenced topic earns a page only so a reader can find an honest account of why it is poorly evidenced, with a prominent caveat, rather than being left to the marketing. Where professionals and elites adopt something ahead of the literature (sodium bicarbonate is the standing example), that adoption is noted as a signal worth weighing, not as proof.

The non-negotiables

Keep it non-commercial. This is a reference, not a shopfront. Contribute because you want the knowledge to be accurate, not because you stand to gain from what a reader does next. Anything written to drive a sale, a sign-up, a click or a referral does not belong here, however well dressed.

No affiliate links. No tracking parameters, no referral codes and no monetised redirects, anywhere in the bundle: not in citations, not in body prose, not in source pages. Link to the primary source directly. If you find an affiliate link already in the bundle, removing it is a welcome contribution.

No promotion of individual brands. Name a product only where the named product is the evidence: a specific super-shoe in the study that measured it, a specific supplement in the trial that tested it. State what the research found and cite it. Do not rank brands, recommend a purchase, or carry a brand’s marketing claim as though it were a finding. A Gear or Substance page describes a category and what the literature says about it; it is not a buyer’s guide.

Keep the sourcing. Every empirical claim cites a source at the point it is made, as an inline link to a page under sources, which in turn links to the primary material. No claim enters the wiki without that chain of provenance running both ways. If you cannot source a claim, either leave it out or flag it explicitly as folklore, with the absence of evidence stated plainly.

The more outlandish the claim, the more careful the sourcing. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. A surprising, counter-intuitive, or strongly-stated assertion needs better support than a mundane one: ideally multiple studies, a meta-analysis, or a consensus statement rather than a single small trial, a press release, or a podcast. Match the evidence grade in the frontmatter to the real strength of the support. Where professionals adopt something ahead of the literature, label it as a signal worth weighing, not as proof.

Page types

Every page declares a type in its frontmatter. Use only these values:

• Source — an ingested document: a paper, review, consensus statement, book, article or talk. Source pages live in sources and anchor every claim.
• Concept — a physiological or theoretical idea (VO₂max, lactate threshold, running economy, durability).
• Technique — a concrete training or practice method (polarised training, the long run, carb-loading, tapering).
• Substance — anything ingested for performance or health (caffeine, nitrate, sodium bicarbonate, iron, ketones).
• Gear — equipment (super-shoes, foams, carbon plates).
• Metric — a defined, measurable quantity (a VO₂max value, HRV, running economy in ml/kg/km). Reserved for now; measured quantities currently live inside the relevant Concept and Gear pages.
• Entity — a named person, body or brand, only where it earns its own page.

Do not invent types. If something needs a type the bundle lacks, propose adding it here first.

Evidence grading

Every claim-bearing page (Concept, Technique, Substance, Gear, Metric) carries an evidence: field in its frontmatter, so the editorial stance is structural rather than buried in prose. The value reflects the page’s headline claim; the body may grade individual claims differently. The occasional editorial or meta page, one about the practice of the field rather than an empirical claim (such as the marketing playbook), may omit the grade and carry a plain callout in place of the evidence banner.

Grade	Meaning
strong	consistent findings from multiple RCTs, meta-analyses or consensus statements; safe to act on
moderate	supported by several studies but with caveats: smaller effects, heterogeneity or population limits
limited	some supporting evidence, but thin, preliminary or mixed
weak	little credible support; widely believed or marketed beyond what the data justifies
contested	genuine disagreement in the literature, or a claim being actively superseded

The evidence callout at the top of each claim-bearing page renders the grade with a fixed icon, so the colour signals the grade and nothing else: strong → [!success], moderate → [!info], limited → [!info], weak → [!danger], contested → [!question]. Do not reach for [!warning] on the evidence callout to flag a risky or over-marketed topic; that caution belongs in a separate body callout (a [!warning], or the standard > [!warning] Not medical advice notice), never in the headline grade.

House style and conventions

• One concept per file. The file path is the concept’s identity. Add a new page for a genuinely novel concept; otherwise extend the existing one. Slugs are kebab-case, descriptive and stable, so renaming is a deliberate act that also updates every link.
• Write under the house style. Prose is plain, direct, British English, with every load-bearing claim cited at the point of use. The clear-writing skill enforces this; match the surrounding pages.
• Cite at the point of use. Citations are inline links at the point of the claim, pointing to a page under sources, which in turn links to the primary material. Provenance runs both ways. Cross-links between pages use ordinary relative markdown links, e.g. [running economy](../concepts/running-economy.md).
• Supersede, never delete. When newer evidence overturns a claim, keep the old claim with a dated marker and add the new one. The bundle preserves what was believed and when. Timestamps are ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD).
• Carry the warnings. Every page that touches health, injury or anything ingested (all injury pages, all nutrition pages, and medical concept pages such as heat illness and cardiac health) carries a standard > [!warning] Not medical advice callout directly below the evidence callout, pointing the reader to a doctor, physiotherapist or registered dietitian. This is a general knowledge base, not clinical advice. Keep it.
• Tag by domain. Tags group by domain (physiology, training, nutrition, recovery, gear, injury) and may add an evidence tag where useful.
• Update the plumbing. A change that adds or moves a page also updates the relevant index.md files and appends a dated entry to log.md.

Raising a change

Open an issue or a pull request describing what you are changing and why. For a new or contested claim, lead with the source. Changes that strengthen sourcing, correct an error or remove commercial creep are the easiest to accept; changes that assert without evidence are the easiest to decline.