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Your health

Do run run

Bored with the scenery on your daily jog? It's easy to fall into a rut once you've plotted your favorite three-mile route. But running geeks know better. They use mapmyrun.com, an interactive Web site that lets you draw a course street-by-street from your front door with the exact mileage calculated as you go.

The Web site also lets you save your runs, send them to friends and see the favorite routes of other runners, helpfully tagged with locations of restrooms and water fountains.

There's also mapmytri.com for triathletes and mapmyhike.com for hikers.

Safe treats

For parents of kids with food allergies, the scariest part of Halloween is the possibility of a life-threatening allergic reaction. A candy bar that a child with a peanut allergy is usually able to eat may be unsafe in the smaller "treat" size because it's made on shared equipment with candies that contain peanuts.

Kidswithfoodallergies.org offers a booklet of Halloween safety tips that you can download. And a new Web site - AllergyFreeHalloween.org - lists candies that are generally free of common allergens such as nuts, milk, eggs, wheat and soy (but be sure to check the ingredient listing anyway).

The list includes such kid pleasers as Smarties, Skittles, Starburst, Nerds, original Runts, Gobstoppers, original Life Savers, original Sweet Tarts and Swedish Fish.

Buy some of your little goblin's favorite allergy-safe candies to "trade" for the unsafe loot he or she collects from the neighbors.

Get moving

Here is yet another reason to exercise: If you have a stroke, you'll be better off.

Researchers found that people who are physically active before suffering a stroke have less severe problems as a result and also recover better. The top 25 percent of people who exercised the most were 2 times more likely to suffer a less severe stroke compared to people who exercised the least, according to a study published in the journal Neurology.

To learn the five signs of stroke, visit giveme5forstroke.org.

Designing women

Just a few more days left of National Breast Cancer Awareness month - have you made a pink purchase yet?

This T-shirt by Jaime King is one of six celeb-designed tees in a limited edition collection - others are by Nicky Hilton, Cindy Crawford, Hilary Duff, Denise Richards and Sophia Bush - to benefit Chicago's Breast Cancer Network of Strength, formerly Y-Me, the country's only 24-hour breast cancer support hotline staffed entirely by trained breast cancer survivors. The T-shirts are a bit pricey at $88, but half the money goes to the cause. Visit shopbop.com to see the other designs.

Just a few more days left of National Breast Cancer Awareness month - have you made a pink purchase yet?
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