Slowness might actually be a health benefit. Some new research says running too much at too fast a pace could prove fatal in the long term.
Exercise is good for you, to a point — doing too much of it actually becomes a serious cardiac risk. That’s long been assumed, but a pair of new studies, which will run in British health journal Heart next month, pretty much confirm it. In the past, the risk used to be assessed by the number of people who passed out during marathons — that was usually about one in 100,000. But while a study of 52,600 runners showed that pounding the pavement can yield a 19 per cent lower mortality rate, that benefit was wiped out for those tallying 30km to 40km a week. Not exactly sure how those stats work because we all die eventually.
The other study says that hey, if you’re slow, you’re doing something right and you’re going to benefit from it. But if you run faster than 13km/h, you’re probably doing some grave damage to the old ticker.
Of course, there isn’t exactly a consensus here. Advocates of lots of fast running say that slowpoke evangelicals have an agenda, and vice-versa. But let’s just go ahead and assume that you should be proud of your 30-minute per kilometre pace. You might not win a medal, but you’re less liable to kill yourself through exercise. [WSJ]
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