Chapter 11 Life on the Run - 10 Kids

10 kids They're faster and tougher than you think The competitive mindset in my family started at an early age.When my son, John, was ten or eleven years old, we drove up to Hamden, Connecticut, one Sunday, and ran a five-mile race.I ran so well that I finished second among competitors my age and won a prize. (According to long-standing tradition, the prize is a carved yellow plastic pedestal with the image of a male athlete in a galloping pose. I should say that runners get the ugliest prize in the world .) After a few minutes, John's name was called; his prize was for the youngest runner to finish, to his delight but to my grievance that his prize was one year larger than mine times.

A few days later, when a friend heard that John had won the prize, he asked me, "Is it okay for a man of his age to run so far?" I felt that I didn't really understand the question.I know many kids who run, some younger than John, and many who even run marathons.I also heard of a child (the son of a marathon runner) who had undergone heart surgery on cardiopulmonary bypass, and whose parents, presumably on doctor's orders, encouraged him to run long distances.I didn't know what running would do for kids, if it was actually good for kids, so I started reading and asking people questions.If running is going to be bad for John, I don't want him to keep running, no matter how big the prize.All I know is that running probably doesn't have the same effect as baseball, football, or basketball.In those sports, although there are always sudden bursts of strength from time to time, and the heart beats faster, there is still a chance to rest.But when running, especially when running, you have to continuously burst out your whole body strength.The heart will pound violently, the legs will ache, and it will be difficult to breathe.What consequences could this have for a child?

As we move on to this question, some evidence begins to answer the question.For example, studies report disturbingly early signs of atherosclerosis—clogged arteries—in a large group of young children.Since aerobic exercise (especially if accompanied by a diet high in fat) can prevent this disease in adults.Even eradicating the disease altogether, so it appears that running may be good for kids too.I have posed this question to one of the brilliant researchers mentioned earlier, Dr. Elswith Bascock, director of the Knoll Institute for Human Behavior in Pennsylvania."The evidence in the literature suggests that a major program of exercise to prevent disease should start at a very young age," he said.

The second piece of evidence comes from the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts.Three researchers there, William McCafferty, Dr. Arthur Cosmas, and Dr. Dee Eddington, recently reported on a study they conducted to shed light on exercise aspects of the relationship with longevity.Specifically, he said, they wanted to find out whether exercising later in life could increase lifespan.Since they were using mice rather than humans, they cannot fully extrapolate from their results to humans.Still, the implications of these results are clear, because if you get a certain result in one organism, you're likely to get a similar result in another.When McCafferty, Cosmas, and Eddington started their experiments, they divided mice ranging in size from four months to ten months into four groups, and let them exercise on a treadmill for 20 minutes a day. to three years old.The earlier the mice started exercising, the better their chances of survival."There appears to be a cut-off age beyond which there may be no benefit to exercising," the three researchers said. "It is reasonable to assume that starting exercise early in life (before a putative cut-off age) and continuing into old age would be beneficial in extending The longevity aspect of the person plays a bigger role than the ability to start exercising later in life."

Another good reason a child needs to start exercising early is so that he or she is less likely to become obese.Dr. Nathan Smith said at a meeting held by the American College of Sports Medicine that obesity is not a diet problem at all, but an activity problem. The cause of obesity is often too little exercise rather than eating too much."For American children, an increasingly active lifestyle is needed to be nutritionally appropriate and to avoid obesity," said Smith, a professor of pediatrics and sports medicine at the University of Washington. What about the damage done to the body?Wouldn't the constant tension of running take a toll on the body more than intermittent exercise?At least the Seattle Public Schools' Gregory Zoller's research shows that compared with other sports, running is not dangerous.Conversely, running can even make other sports less dangerous.In Physician and Sports Medicine, the aforementioned Jack Wilmore writes about the importance of matching exercise to exercise.For example, the endurance of the heart and lungs may help a soccer player, even though what he needs most is strength."Soccer players rely on short bursts of intensified activity during each game," Wilmore said. "As such, football is primarily a form of activity that manifests itself in speed and power, and it requires a lot of hypoxic metabolism. However , when the game progresses to the second half, durability becomes decisive.

Athletes with poor endurance will fatigue .. and be more prone to serious injuries. "In virtually any sport, cardiorespiratory endurance—the kind of endurance you develop through running—will help. In addition, the psychological changes induced by running benefit young people as much as adults.Knowing at an early age that you can run faster than everyone else except a few can be a huge boost to your self-confidence.A teenager in a race who sprints with a hundred yards remaining to pass a seemingly able-bodied twenty-five-year-old produces in him a feeling of rare equality. feel.Roger Bannister wrote: "Adolescence is often a time of psychological conflict and confusion, and during these years a boy may be more successful if he undertakes strenuous activities that test his body and mind to the utmost. Stand the test."

Note: *This was Bannister's opinion a dozen years ago.If he were writing this article now, there is no doubt that he would include girls as well as boys. Even the period before puberty is a very good time for running.One day in the fall, I went to Van Corrante Park in the north end of New York City to watch the national junior cross-country championships for my age.Three thousand four hundred and twenty-nine boys and girls, some as young as six, took part in the competition.They raced for a mile and a half along a track around a wide grassy field.They were divided into several groups with an age difference of two years.They ran like a swarm of bees—girls of six and seven, then girls of eight and nine, and on down to boys of sixteen and seventeen.The results of the game were surprising.In the youngest group of girls, one girl ran the distance in less than seven and a half minutes per mile.

In a group of boys of the same age, one boy ran the distance in 10 and 48 seconds (a little over seven minutes per mile), much faster than many adults.But even more remarkable than their running speed was their mood at the time.When the kids sprint for the last few yards, their faces have the same expression of desperate struggle you see on the faces of runners at international races.But as soon as they crossed the finish line, they returned to the smiling, cheerful mood of a day in the great outdoors. Despite the above evidence, some parents worry that their children will be too young to run hard enough to injure themselves.They're probably also worried about something like the "twenty-yard dash to mom" that Duke University held recently for babies six to thirteen months old.Since I have children myself, I consult doctors and physiologists for their views on such matters.Most recommend that appropriate caution be taken.For example, don't let your four-year-old run a marathon.But no one mentions that a child permanently injures himself or herself by running, no matter how young he or she is.To sum up, there is only one sentence, which is to seek truth from facts.You don't want your kids to come back from a workout so exhausted they can barely crawl, and you don't want to do it yourself.But that's unlikely to happen if you don't force him to do more than he can.Most people (regardless of age) can learn to slow down when they start to overinjure themselves.

Most people understand this, but not all do.When running becomes too strenuous, young people are less willing than adults to lighten their activity.For example, on a very hot day in August, I saw some middle school children running a race. They had very strong self-esteem and refused to fall behind. Pao, still enduring the pain and running.This is stupid.Will always run again.Like the rest of us, young people should think of running as a long-term sport, not as something that can be mastered in one racing season. It doesn't matter if the young people don't run the races; it's a great thing if they want to.The most important thing is to be consistent.There is something special about running every day in all kinds of weather, and young people, like the rest of us, are capable of it.Running is also a sport that children and adults can do together, not only exercising together, but also bonding through conversation and physical care for each other.There is nothing more enjoyable than two, or even three, generations running together, forgetting the usual differences between them.David Berhans, introduced in Chapter 5, talks about the joy of running with his children: "From the first day I started running, four of my six children have been with me. Running together. It greatly increased my enjoyment of running. I bought them each a pair of cheap sneakers and USC track jerseys that I wore exactly. We soon became a family track team Fortunately, we have a rule of running every day: "No one is allowed to run ahead of Dad", so they always patiently run beside me, waiting for me to exercise gradually to reach the level of their old age. Distances and times that would have been achieved a long time ago. We’ve run nine miles since then — and that’s right around my daughter’s ninth birthday!”

Young people will find that most of the principles scattered throughout the chapters of this book are as applicable to older people as they are.There are, however, a few points worth emphasizing.Children's bodies adapt to exercise faster than older people, and because they improve so quickly, they can't help but push themselves harder and do more than they can; a young runner adopts such a hard training method, For a short period of time everything may go well, but in the end he'll pull a muscle, have a sore tendon, or if he's lucky, just feel terribly worn out.Fatigue goes away after a few days of rest, but injuries to muscles and tendons take longer to heal.Therefore, it is important to start exercising slowly, building a foundation of endurance before striving to increase speed.Bill Bowerman is the author of "Jogging" and a former coach at the University of Oregon.Not only that, but from time to time he offers some of the wisest opinions on running.

He advises runners of any age not to start running hard until they can run for an hour without becoming overly tired.Early in your workout, the focus should be on learning to run far, no matter how slow. Sadly, in many track and trail running programs, such leisure is not possible.At the start of the race season, neither runner was trained, and with the expectation that he would be competing in an athletic meet within weeks, the arduous training began immediately.One countermeasure smart athletes take is to start exercising slowly on their own a few weeks before the competition season.Then, when his trainer started working him hard, he was strong enough to do any workout. This is especially the case if runners have been eating on a normal athlete's diet.Most of the nutritional principles discussed in Chapter 14 apply to young runners, but many young people find it difficult to apply these principles consistently.They always crave snacks like potato chips, soft drinks, and corned beef, and often skip breakfast in the morning rush.If you're a young athlete, try to avoid developing this habit.While foods like corned beef add calories, they have little nutritional value, and skipping breakfast leaves you without energy when you need it.Nutritionists say that one-third of a person's calories should be taken in the morning. If you're a girl, it's important to eat foods high in iron to make up for the iron you lose during menstruation.Eating more liver and vegetables with dark green leaves is a convenient way to get this nutrient.It is also important for girls to stick to proper eating habits.Joseph Moreira and Richard Tuccietti write in Nutrition and the Athlete: "Men reach their healthiest development in their eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twenties; In women it peaks at puberty and at the age of fifteen or sixteen. From this peak age there is a steady decline in health unless maintained by proper exercise and diet." It is generally believed that what an adult runner eats in the hours leading up to a race won't help.In the case of young athletes, there is a certain skepticism about that.Some authorities say that children fifteen years of age and younger should not eat for four or so hours before a game.Some disagree with this statement, among them Dr. Robert Craig of Fernandina Shores, Florida.He has been a volunteer doctor for the middle school team, the Pope, Warner teams, and the junior baseball teams.He wrote recently: "As any parent knows, these young people seem to be eating constantly. Many of them are in their developmental stages. If they are not allowed to eat within four hours before a game Food, my impression is that by the second half of the game, they start to feel extreme fatigue or organ loss. Six hours is a long time without food for a young man of this age." I think many situations vary from person to person.If a young athlete feels weak and tired after four hours without food, this is probably a reliable sign that he or she needs to eat more often. Try it out for yourself, and you'll get answers you can't even find in the most authoritative medical texts. If you're a young athlete, eating right, exercising right, and honing your will for the rigors of competition, are you sure you'll get your best results?Regrettably, no.Oded Bar-Or, an Israeli physician who has studied some of the early signs of elite athletes, says that constants like height, anti-paced, and innate ability to handle oxygen are extremely important.Per-Olaf Otland, a Swedish researcher, said: "I believe that anyone who hopes to win an Olympic medal must first see whether his or her parents are suitable." On the other hand, there are many factors that science cannot predict—at least not so far.Science fails to take into account people's drive, ability to learn, and willingness to endure hardship, and it is for this reason that a man with all the right genetic qualities may be overwhelmed by a man who seems so clumsy that he stumbles before he can run a hundred yards. beat.It is for this reason that young runners do all sorts of unexpected miracles, and it is for this reason that if you are one of them, you will have fun.