Running and Meditation

Meditating before running could change the brain in ways that are more beneficial for mental health than practicing either of those activities alone, according to an interesting study of a new treatment program for people with depression.

Running and Spirituality

When the late great running philosopher George Sheehan, M.D., gave motivational talks to runners, he often quoted the wife of a running convert: "My husband used to be a Methodist. Now he's a runner." Running may not be a religion, but as Dr. Sheehan would go on to say, "It's a retreat, a place to commune with God and yourself, a place for psychological and spiritual renewal."

A Run a Day Keeps the Cancer Away

Exercise protects against cancer. Researchers now understand why

AMPLE evidence shows that exercising regularly reduces the risk of cancer. Similarly, those who have survived the disease are less likely to see it return if they engage in lots of physical activity after treatment. All this suggests that such activity triggers a reaction in the body which somehow thwarts cancer cells, but the details of the process have remained murky. Now, a team led by Pernille Hojman at Copenhagen University Hospital, in Denmark, has reported in Cell Metabolism that the key to the mystery is adrenalin.

Running at 3 a.m. -- The Few, The Proud, The Crazy?

When Adam Reitz doesn't feel like waking up at 3:30 a.m. for his daily run, he reaches out for his phone and looks at the picture that changed his life.

Most days he doesn't need to reach for the phone. The image of himself 100 pounds heavier is engraved in his mind, as are the feelings associated with that picture.

Cross-Training -- Is it Blasphemy for Runners?

A wise runner once said, "The hardest thing for a runner to do is not run."

For me, truer words were never spoken. For more than two months, I continued to run despite suffering from a torn meniscus in my right knee. Sure, there was a little pain and discomfort in the knee when I ran, but isn't a little pain what running is all about? So, like most hard-headed, addicted-to-endorphins runners, I continued running - as much as 10 miles some days.

Running Just Kind of Snuck Up on Me

MAYBE IT'S MY farmer blood, but athletics was not a word I grew up with. We swam in the ocean, but that was really just jumping around in the waves. Hiking was acceptable, because that was Nature, which involved admiring the view and recognizing birds and plants and mountain ranges.

But athletics - the idea of spending an afternoon playing tennis or soccer, and even worse, in uniform (Raver 16) - well, the unspoken feeling in our family was that this was frivolous. If you were going to go out and sweat and build muscles, why not bring the hay in at the same time? Or build a new pighouse?

So when a friend talked me into running the "Dreaded Winter Series," six short races that weave about Middle Island in January and February, my parents were rather nonplussed.

"Aren't you a little old for that?" asked Dad, who's 81. Running, in his view, is something children do, and refrigerators, if they're GE.

Warren Kay and the Sacred Art of Running

It's not that Warren A. Kay sees God lurking among the bushes during his morning jogs.

But for this longtime distance runner, running and spirituality are inseparable. So connected are the two, says the Merrimack College theology professor, that one can actually "experience the divine in the physicality of running" and have a conversation with God while on the track.

Allow him to explain.

Incline Training

Benefits of Incline Training

1. Greater heart rates: Research shows that  walking only two mph at a 24% incline yields greater heart rates than running six mph at zero incline. Meaning that incline training is a highly effective way to get in shape and train your heart, without painful joint impact and jarring.

64-Year-Old Hitting His Stride

He looks like he has discovered a cure for aging. His body is taut. His smile is bright and wide. And at 64, Tom Pontac shows no outward signs of slowing down. Literally.

For Pontac became a newlywed last year, graduated from college in the spring and now plans to train as many of his new neighbors as he can to do what he loves most: run marathons.

Heel Strike: More Efficient for Walking?

Humans, other great apes and bears are among the few animals that step first on the heel when walking, and then roll onto the ball of the foot and toes. Now, a University of Utah study shows the advantage: Compared with heel-first walking, it takes 53 percent more energy to walk on the balls of your feet, and 83 percent more energy to walk on your toes.

Exercise: Are You Longing for the Next Hit?

EXPERTS agree exercise is good for us. It can even be addictive, with those hooked constantly looking for the next hit.

Most of us have a healthy approach to exercise and a good balance of mind, body and spirit, but there are those for whom exercise becomes a deadly addiction.

16-Year-Old to Run Marathon with 80-Year-Old Grandpa

It's special for a 16-year-old boy to run his first full marathon.

But what makes it even more special for Victorville's Joseph Flores is that he's running with his 80-year-old grandfather.

Flores will participate in today's Los Angeles Marathon with 20 other or so Academy of Academic Excellence students as part of Students Run L.A., an organization that sponsors teenagers to run the marathon and provides guidance.

Hips Don't Lie

When it comes to running, the hips don't lie

Is running turning into a pain in the knees? It might actually be the hips that need your attention, according to a sports medicine expert at Baylor College of Medicine (www.bcm.edu).

"The knees are usually the victims of the biomechanics that people run with," said Dr. Joseph Chorley (www.bcm.edu/pediatrics/sportsmedicine/index. cfm?pmid=17579), associate professor of pediatrics-adolescent and sports medicine at BCM and Texas Children's Hospital (www.texaschildrens.com).

Coach Jenny Talks about Nerves

As for those nerves? They're great for running, says Jenny Hadfield, a Chicago-based marathoner and coach who will be speaking in Calgary to talk about her own struggles with running and offer a few tips to get marathoners through their race.

"I'm always concerned when I talk to a first-timer who isn't nervous because that means they don't understand the magnitude of what they are about to do. Nerves are good. You can harness that nervous energy to help get you to the end."

Gotta Run

It seems Megan Andrews has hardly stopped to take a breath during her entire athletic life. Just hearing about her daily routine is exhausting. But that's why she's a perfect fitness role model.

Her love affair with sports started in childhood. Andrews grew up running track, doing gymnastics, cheerleading, and playing basketball and softball. In college, she played soccer and danced with the Dixie Darlings of University of Southern Mississippi. Even after she earned two degrees and had a full-time job as BREC's marketing manager and director of special events, she couldn't sit still.

"I realized that I LOVE to eat, and the only way I could continue to enjoy that … was to remain active," she said.

To crosstrain or not to crosstrain?

When it comes to crosstraining, keep in mind that the ACSM guidelines recommend it for overall health--not for sport-specific performance. This is crucial because it reconciles what sometimes seems like conflicting evidence.

Dave Brewer: Addicted to Running?

Dave Brewer likes to run. He ran yesterday. If he’s alive and not in traction, he ran today. He ran every day last month, and every day last year, too, and on April 16, 2011, he will celebrate one quarter of a century without missing a single day of covering at least two miles. In the running world, people like him are called streakers, but Brewer, a 56-year-old financial manager from Herndon, Va., says “the technical term is ‘idiot.’ ” Brewer is also modest. I learned about the streak only because I was bragging to him—he’s an old friend—about jogging six days a week for a year, and he casually mentioned it.

Midlife Crisis? Start Running!

Paul O’Grady, who recently turned 50, on running with ‘The Bucket Listers’

When did you start running and why?

The Power of Habit

by Charles Duhigg
Random House, $28.00 
274 pages

The basal ganglia is a golf ball-sized lump of tissue in the brain, the importance of which was not well understood until the early 1990s. It was then that a team of scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology noticed that rats with impaired basal ganglia developed problems with tasks such as remembering how to open food containers.

By surgically implanting tiny sensors into the test animals' brains, the scientists were able to track the way the brain responded as rats hunted for chocolate in a labyrinth. There were no set patterns of behavior as the rats sniffed out the chocolate. To the casual observer, it appeared as if the animals were idly meandering about. The electronic sensors told a different story, however: the rodents' brains were working furiously as they navigated the maze.

199 Pounds in Less than a Year

It started out as one of those typical New Year's resolutions, a friendly -- but spirited -- bet between spouses that likely would be forgotten once the calendar turned to February or March.

This one, though, was far different.