OK. Stop. Running IS Healthy.

I am so tired of people telling me that they don't exercise because it doesn't make you healthier. It really aggravates me. If you don't like it or don't want to, that's fine. What I don't like is the rationalization based on false information and the insinuation that my efforts for a healthier lifestyle are all for naught.

Without fail, Jim Fixx is mentioned. He is one of runnings founding fathers. He wrote The Complete Book of Running and ran every day of his life. Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack while running at age 50. Ironically, he was found by an elderly man smoking his morning cigarette.

However, the story NOT told is that his father died in his early 40's of heart disease. It is very possible that running extended his life by almost a decade.

The truth is that running is... DUH... very healthy.

http://medheadlines.com/2008/08/13/run-to-slow-aging-process/

After 19 years of study, only 15% of the runners had died, from any cause, compared to 34% of the group of nonrunners. As was expected, the rate of death due to cardiovascular disease was much lower in the group of runners but the running group also had fewer deaths attributed to cancer, infection, and neurological disease, among others.

By the 21st year of the study, participants in both the running and nonrunning groups had started bearing signs of advanced age. They are now all in their 70s and 80s. What has proven to be quite remarkable is that the age of decline is dramatically later in the runners than in the nonrunners.

The onset of initial disability occurred 16 years later, on average, in the group of runners than in the group not running. Even more surprising is that, as age advances, the gap between the health of the runners versus the health of the nonrunners widens, in effect compressing the ill effects of old age into the shortest amount of time possible.

For me, it has the potential to be life saving. My maternal grandfather died very yound of colon cancer. Running has been STRONGLY linked to a reduction in colon cancer. I would explain why, but it's kinda gross.