Study: Slow Runners Come Out Ahead

The New York Times reports on a new study on running :

the researchers compared the names of the volunteers in both groups against death records. They also determined whether, based on average life expectancies, the volunteers were living longer, or had shortened lifespans.

As it turned out, and as expected, joggers consistently tended to live longer than people who did not exercise.

But when the researchers closely parsed the data about how much and how intensely people jogged, some surprises emerged.

The ideal amount of jogging for prolonged life, this nuanced analysis showed, was between 1 hour and 2.4 hours each week. And the ideal pace was slow. (The researchers did not specify exact paces in their study, using instead the broad categories of slow, average and fast, based on the volunteers’ self-reported usual pace.)

Plodding joggers tended to live longer than those who ran faster. In fact, the people who jogged most often and at the fastest pace — who were, in effect, runners rather than joggers — did not enjoy much benefit in terms of mortality. In fact, their lifespans tended to be about the same as those who did not exercise at all.

An article worth your time.