Even while playing team sports, he often acted as a trainer, taping ankles, bandaging blisters, and bracing injured joints.

"I think the saying goes, 'If you can't play, you coach,'" Roberts says. "For me, it was, 'If you can't play or coach, you take care of those who can.'"

That sentiment continued throughout Roberts's medical training. He worked as a tournament physician for the Minnesota State High School League while a resident in the University of Minnesota Smiley's family medicine residency program. As he was finishing his residency, a friend who was organizing the medical team for the Twin Cities Marathon asked him to join.

"That seeded my interest in the care of runners," Roberts says.

Marathon-related research

Since then, Roberts has been a frontline observer of running-related injury and performance at the Twin Cities Marathon, Boston Marathon, Olympics in Atlanta and Barcelona, and other races around the world. Because of those experiences, Roberts has compiled a large collection of research studies on exertional heat stroke and the impact of temperature on running performance and injury.

He's also collaborating on other research projects with his residents at St. John's that look at the effects marathon running has on children and at the rates of sudden cardiac death in high school athletes.

In his spare time, Roberts enjoys a variety of athletic activities: Nordic skiing, downhill skiing, hockey, catamaran racing, hiking, and kayaking. He skis or inline-skates most days of the week and has even skated a few marathon-distance races.

Yet despite his involvement with marathon runners, he has never run a marathon himself. "Never," Roberts says. "They're for crazy people."  « Page 1

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