Chapter 10 "Running Life" - 9 middle-aged people

9 When you are over forty you'll really start looking forward to your birthday A year or two ago, after the Boston Marathon, I went to a party some fellow runners were throwing in their hotel rooms.A runner is most at home with their fellow runners after a tough run, so it was a pleasant, boozy gathering, with people busily commenting - no doubt In beautifying - the situation where they play, as long as anyone is willing to listen.Finally I chatted with a grey-haired man named Norman Bright.Bright is nearly sixty-five years old, but he still managed to finish the race with an astonishing time of two hours, fifty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds. Two competitors.While several of the younger fellow runners at the party sat or lay down on the carpet from exhaustion from running, Bright stood up and talked briskly.He told me he was planning to go abroad for some European competitions soon and was looking forward to seeing something different.He opened an orange backpack tucked in the corner of the room, and pulled out some maps, pamphlets, and blank registration forms he'd gathered in preparation for the trip.He was as excited as a teenager.

Norman Bright was unusual mainly because he was an American.In our country we often have a strange old idea of ​​how old people should live, even those who have just passed forty.They should be like Lawrence Welker and not like Bob Dylan, (Lawrence Welker is a bandleader, conservative; Note) They seem to be eating porridge instead of baked pies, dozing in train seats instead of sweating on the road from Hopkinton to Boston.Europeans rarely have such prejudices.The German Sports Association in West Germany has established more than 40,000 sports clubs, many of which have activity plans for sports for the elderly.In Italy, where a fifteen-mile race is held every spring in Milan, of the 33,000 runners who took part in the last one, 4,000 were elderly people, and 150 were over 60 years old. Italian, participated in the forty-three mile ski race.While sport probably won't replace drinking as a national pastime in France, thousands of people over sixty meet once a week for exercise.In the Soviet Union, the state-run labor and health department organized cross-country running and skiing competitions.In winter, ice swimming is also held, which is said to strengthen the nervous system, boost metabolism and strengthen willpower.

All of these are different from what is required of older adults in the United States.Dr. Theodore G. Krump, a New York cardiologist who hopes to implement a national exercise program for the elderly.He said: "We have taken an overprotective attitude. Our middle-aged and older people are always persuaded to take up and even actually forced to reduce their physical activity, so that we have atrophied due to disuse. degree, with damaging—if not fatal—consequences.” As recently as two or three decades ago, there was a serious debate about whether middle-aged people should engage in physical activity.In 1950, P.J. Steinclone said in his book "How to Stop Suicide": "Movement is a state of mind. Like sheep, we follow the leader. We hear that 'movement is a state of mind'. You are good', we regard it as a wise saying regardless of whether it is true or not, let our squeaky joints, stiff and uncontrollable muscles suffer unnecessary fatigue, just because we think that exercise is an indispensable part of normal life. The missing appendage. Remember, you don't have to exercise."

But now there are finally signs of change.One is that more and more men and women over forty are participating in running. From the latest report of the National Running Information Center, it can be seen that among the 18,466 runners who participated in official competitions in 1975, about 2,250 were over the age of 40 .And many of them, men or women, train as hard and run as well as young people in their twenties and thirties.In some competitions that are graded by age (every five years), the age is one higher (e.g. fifty-fifty-four) It is not uncommon for champions to run faster than champions of younger divisions.Not long ago, at a race in Sucasuna, New Jersey, I met Luncie El Perry, a seventy-two-year-old runner.He started running when he was sixty, after a doctor told him to get more physical activity.Today he is a member of the Old Guard club at the local YMCA, runs six miles a day, and races many men half his age.He told me: "The doctor said I could run another fifty years."

As mentioned in Chapter 4, Dr. Fred Cash has demonstrated that physical activity can halt or even reverse several of the major physiological changes associated with aging.Furthermore, at the University of Southern California, Dr. Herbert Devries and Gene Adams (their work is briefly mentioned in Chapter 2) reported in a study of women aged fifty-two to seventy-nine Studies have shown that as little as three months of exercise can significantly improve the cardiovascular system and lower resting heart rate.At Penn State University's Knoll Human Behavior Research Laboratory, scientists have shown that previously inactive middle-aged women can benefit as much from an exercise program as men, and are no more prone to injury than men.Finally, researchers at the University of Southern California have also shown that through running and other sports.Practicing a year of physical exercise, the octogenarians can lower blood pressure, reduce body fat and reduce nervous tension levels, while also significantly increasing physical strength.In short, no matter how old you are when you start exercising, you can always make progress.

For the elderly, the biggest benefit probably does not lie in health itself, but when they are in good health, they will naturally feel more comfortable and have more fun.This explains, more than dry statistics on health improvement, the large number of men over forty who are now joining running teams. Whatever you do, whether it's work or some other hobby, it's always more comfortable if it doesn't make you do it out of breath.On the other hand, few things can be more frustrating than being unable to do what almost everyone else can do.The United States Administration of the Elderly said: "The non-use of organs is the deadly enemy of the human body. We now know that today, the physical problems usually associated with old age are not how long you can live, but how you live." A doctor used Another way of saying it: "The organs of most of us are not worn out but rusted out."

Fifteen years ago, at the publishing house where I worked, I met a handsome young editor of twenty-four or five-year-old named Ted.He's a very smart guy, and we're very speculative about it.In the end, both of us finally left that publishing house and lost contact.One or two years ago.Ted invited me to lunch and I hardly recognized him.He was forty pounds heavier than before, and his double chin quivered as he spoke.He asked me how I kept fit and I told him it was running.There was a worried expression on his face, and he asked me with concern: "But, is it really good for a person of your age to do such a thing? You know, I am forty years old, and I try not to tire yourself out."

So do most people, but by no means all.Forty years ago, in 1935, a twenty-seven-year-old runner named John A. Kelly won the Boston Marathon.Ten years later, he won again, finishing faster than he had the first time.Kelly, now in his late seventies, still runs marathons, and people cheer him on as a long-term fixture.In San Francisco, Larry Lewis was a full-time waiter in a San Francisco hotel and ran six miles a day when he was over 100 years old. The beauty of the running world is that guys like Lewis, Kelly, Bright, and Perry aren't thought of as beggars or curious, they race with twentysomethings to His own achievements are equally respected.They have their own publications (including a perfectly good one called Veteran in the UK), their own organization (the Veterans Sports Association) and even host their own annual Seniors International Olympic Games.It's no wonder that many of them, not only aren't afraid of birthdays, they even look forward to them, calculating that as they move up to the next age class, they'll be harder to beat.

There is often no difference in the workouts of older adults who are serious about running and younger ones who are serious about running.Many older people run as much, if not more, than their younger counterparts.Ted Corbett says: "You shouldn't run less just because you're getting older. If you're going from five miles to a marathon, you've got to run longer." John Kelly ran an hour a day, Vigorous exercise most of the time.Jim McDonagh was a top runner in his fifties.He once ran sixty-five miles in preparation for the famous fifty-two-and-a-half-mile race from London to Brighton.Corbett himself goes out early in the morning and runs all day.A few years ago, when Runner's World Press published a pamphlet called Running After Forty, the editors found that not much could be said about exercising for older runners because Most have already talked about how young people should exercise, so they can only fill this book with a lot of biographical information on the first-class runners in their forties, fifties, sixties and seventies. booklet.

If you're an older runner, your workouts are bound by two factors: the length of your workout runs and the amount of exercise you can handle.A middle-aged marathoner needs to run as much as a young person, probably at least nine or ten miles a day, Corbett said.If he wants to run well, he needs to run more.But if he's only going for a five- or six-mile run once in a while, two miles a day should be enough.As pointed out before, there are many runners who are not interested in racing, and for these people, running eight to ten miles a day can also give you the health and well-being you expect.

But while older runners may run as far as younger runners, with rare exceptions, they are not as fast as younger runners.The reason, of course, is that the movements of the aging body gradually slow down.Numerous scientific studies report that as we age, our muscle strength, coordination, maximum heart rate and oxygen consumption capacity all decrease.The same goes for our ability to adapt to heat.A research report shows that the time for men aged 39 to 45 to sweat is twice as slow as that of men aged 19 to 31, and the time to stop sweating after training To be twice as long.Also, doubly negatively, older people are more prone to injury and slower to recover. There are, however, some compensations.First, physical activity declines slowly until the age of sixty. For example, physical strength increases from infancy to twenty years, and then begins to decline at a very slow rate (see illustration # on page 125).It is not until about sixty years old that the descending line shows a significant steepness.And, while older people are more vulnerable, they make up for it by being less careful.Young people, especially those who engage in infrequent strenuous exercise, often pull out muscles and sprain knees and heels. (# School Note: The illustration on page 125 has not been scanned. The trend of physical strength with age is: it rises rapidly from the age of 10 to 20, begins to decline after the age of 20, and declines rapidly after the age of 60.) If you're over forty and just starting to run, the most important thing, and probably the hardest thing to do, is to be content with slow progress. The advice "exercise but don't overdo it" is particularly pertinent.If you put on your running shoes after twenty years and start running fast, you may improve in the short term, but sooner or later you will definitely hurt yourself.Because muscles and tendons that have not been used for a long time, it takes a long time to re-adapt to more intense exercise.In my first two or three years of running, I had multiple injuries.Then, inexplicably, the pain disappeared.Today, almost ten years later, it's just occasional discomfort and then, usually, a good run and it's cured.Says a California doctor who also runs a marathon: "A man who is just starting to run has to remodel his entire body. It can't be done overnight." So start off by running slowly, slow enough to talk to fellow runners while running.At first, the emphasis is on building endurance; later, after you've laid down what runners call a "base," speed is required. That way, you're doing exactly what a world-class athlete like Bill Rogers does when he workouts.Rogers began by making sure he had the strength and stamina to run twenty-six miles without overtiring; The incredible pace of a five-minute mile.To lay and maintain such a foundation, Rogers ran twenty miles a day, year after year.Someone asked him if he was tired from running such a long distance.He replied, "No, I've been doing it for three years now, and I can do it fairly effortlessly." Maybe you decide to run only a mile or two a day, but like Rogers, you have to make sure you can Moderate pace is just a tiring way of running the distance, then increase the pace. Dr. Leroy Getcher, already mentioned, who directs an exercise program for adults at Indiana State Ball University, knows exactly how older people respond to physical activity.He has written articles and books, most recently "Healthy, How to Live".As a member of the University's prestigious Human Behavior Experiment (see Chapter 23), he was aware of the latest research results.Plus, he himself has first-hand experience as someone who runs six miles a day.Getchel recommends that middle-aged people who start running should have a general health check first, and then start walking until they can walk quickly for an hour without panting, dizziness, chest pain or extreme fatigue, and then switch to running. Ball State University's training schedule, four mornings a week, from 6:15 to 6:45, is a good example for adults starting to run.Men and women work out together (there's no reason to lose the fun of being with friends just because you decide to go for a run).After some warming up, the participants ran at a pace reasonably fast enough to reach seventy-five percent of the difference between their peak heart rate and their resting heart rate plus their resting heart rate— — See the method introduced in Chapter 5. Even for older people, exercise, especially running, can go a long way toward counteracting the long-term effects of smoking, drinking, and overeating that characterized twentieth-century life.Several studies have reported that inactive older adults who start running can become just as fit as older athletes.Dr. Devries has shown that even octogenarians can greatly enhance their physical function through physical exercise. *In a town in Connecticut where I live, a group of runners gathers on a quarter-mile track every Thursday night in the summer for a short race.There is no registration fee, and there is no need to go through any formalities. There are all kinds of participants, including university competitors, housewives and children.In the summers of the past few years, there has always been a gray-haired old man in his seventies who has come to participate.He was wearing shorts and tennis shoes, and he ran slowly around the outer circle of the track as we raced.One night, I got into a conversation with him.He told me his wife had recently passed away and he was living alone now and started running to see if he could feel better.When I asked him if he'd made him feel better, he grinned like a child and said, "Even if you give me money, I can't take a day off." Note: *His findings also suggest that people over sixty benefit from light exercise that would have little effect on younger people.Even a walk can have a considerable effect on them.