Wednesday, March 25

Good news for runners

I saw a news story on older runners on tv yesterday and I found a link to similar research online today .

Briefly, the point of the research is that it's OK to keep running no matter how old you get as long as you are healthy. Running, in other words, isn't bad for your joints.

The main problem for older runners is need to watch out for is overtraining.

So listen to your body and enjoy the run.

Of course, as I'm trying to get back in shape, I find that overtraining is a danger.

Here are excerpts from the article:


But a study out of Stanford University that looked at healthy aging runners found that running did not damage joints or leave runners less able to exercise. Researchers discovered that if you're healthy and generally free of injury, there are few reasons to put away your running shoes, even into your 70s and 80s.

"Moderate [running], three to five miles at a time, three times a week will actually help your joints to be more resilient and function a little bit better," says Dr. Amadeus Mason at Emory Sports Medicine Center in Atlanta, Georgia. But he stresses that keeping the joints healthy in the first place may be the key to running longevity.That includes not running through pain, and resting if you have an injury...


Beyond the good news about aging joints, the Stanford researchers also discovered some surprising overall health benefits for senior runners when they compared them with non-runners of the same age: Those in the running group were less likely to die from heart trouble, stroke, cancer, neurological diseases or infection.

"The survival rate of the runners was again twice that of the controls," study author Dr. Eliza Chakravarty says. She says the findings were a surprise to the researchers.
Health Library

Additionally, runners enjoyed a better day-to-day quality of life in old age than their more sedentary peers. "Members of the running group, it took them 16 years longer to reach certain levels of disability," says Chakravarty.

Thursday, March 19

Toenails

I seem to have misplaced my toenail clippers.

My longest run so far has been five miles. I'm getting back into the swing of things slowly.

But one thing I've noticed is that I haven't clipped my toenails in a while. But running is forcing off the tips of the big toe toenails in jagged ways. I almost feel like that X-men superhero wolverine. These toenails are sharp now.

Anyhow, my current neighborhood is very hilly so that gives me the opportunity to get a good workout out of even short runs.

Tuesday, March 17

Warmest Day of the year

I ran five miles today.

I can't remember the last time I ran that far. And lately I've been struggling through one and two mile runs. I struggled through the five mile run but I made it.

It was a beautiful day. I heard on the news that it was the warmest day of the year. And it would be getting colder soon.

That doesn't surprise me.

It's so good to get out and run because you get to fully participate in the seasons. Although it was warm today, the trees didn't have any leaves on them. I could tell it wasn't quite spring yet.

But things are changing.

Monday, March 16

Welcome back, BL

It's good to see this blog site returning to life and to read about BL's runs.

Springfield had the perfect running weather this past weekend. Wish you had been here.

Sunday, March 8

Couch Potato to 5K

I've been looking at some different Couch to 5K schedules, and this one looks good. It's only four months long, as opposed to seven months, which seems pretty long... But, one of my friends, specifically the one who got into amazing shape at the end of this last year, uses this website.

This week, my mileage was again two miles--mainly because it was too cold to go outside at the beginning of the week. I did another workout today, this time pairing my mile on a treadmill with some time on an elliptical machine and lifting weights. My knee started to feel funny when I was doing squats, so I stopped them, and other than a few twinges on the bike ride home, it seems to be doing okay. I'll pay attention to it when I run next. Not much news with this workout: last week, I'd added a little weight to most of the things that I do, so this week, I was mainly doing the same weights, but finding it slightly easier.

Friday, March 6

Movement toward the barely possible

Speaking of:

I've been running about 2 miles per week, ever since an injury sidelined me back in September. Or, rather, I've been running that much since I started running again, in January.

Runner's World advises adding no more than 10% of your weekly mileage each week, to avoid injury.

So, starting this week, I can go 2 miles
Week 2: 2.2
Week 3: 2.42
Week 4: 2.662
Week 5: 2.9
Week 6: 3.22
Week 7: 3.54
Week 8: 3.89
Week 9: 4.29
Week 10: 4.71
Week 11: 5.18
Week 12: 5.7
Week 13: 6.27
Week 14: 6.90
Week 15: 7.59
Week 16: 8.35
Week 17: 9.19
Week 18: 10.1

Now, I don't know that this needs to be adhered to that strictly. For instance, I think I could probably add a half-mile run in sometime this week, and jump to week 3 without doing too much harm, and adding 0.1 miles to each run next week (0.3 total added) would also probably not bring to a breaking point. Mostly, I wanted to type this up to see just how long it really will take to come back from an injury. The hardest part about this set of numbers is, just when I was cheering up, thinking that I could run a 5K in 6 weeks... I realized that the 5K would be my entire week's mileage.

So, this is sobering. 18 weeks before running 10 miles in a week. That... wow. Wow.

That is incentive to make sure to add the 0.2 this week, so that I can get to 2.4 the next week. Otherwise, I'll either be stuck doing my 1-mile runs forever, or risk injury.

That said, I'm seriously contemplating training for a triathlon. It's not worth aggravating my injury to try to train for a run too early, but focusing more on cross-training could probably do wonders in terms of keeping my cardiovascular health from slipping any more than it already has in the last few months.

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