In October 2009 three men described as "healthy" died while running a half-marathon (13.
1 miles) in Detroit.
Although age may have been a factor in the death of Rick Brown who was 65, Daniel Langdon was 36 -- and Jonathan Fenlon was only 26.
Earlier in October, two men in their thirties died running a half-marathon in San Jose California.
In September a 23 year old man died while competing in a half-marathon in Virginia Beach Virginia.
That's six deaths within just two months.
And they were running half-marathons, not even the more grueling full-length marathon distance of 26.
2 miles.
Of course, the most famous running death belongs to Jim Fixx author of THE COMPLETE BOOK OF RUNNING.
He was one of the people who popularized the sport back in the late 1970s.
He died of a heart attack while on a training run in 1984.
I'm not sure who spread the "factoid" that if your heart was strong enough to run a marathon, you could not have a heart attack for seven years even if you spent them on a couch feasting on pizza and hamburgers.
Googling marathon deaths will turn up many others just in 2009 -- far more than I can list here.
Clearly the "traditional" long slow distance running (or other activities such as cycling and swimming) is not as heart-healthy as commonly assumed.
What can we do to protect ourselves from both under and over exercising? He's apparently forgotten, but the true running pioneer was Kenneth Cooper who wrote AEROBICS in the 1960s.
He approached exercise as a scientist trying to find how people could improve their intake and usage of oxygen.
In later books he published extensive tables that showed that running for shorter distances at greater speed was aerobically equivalent to running longer distances at slower speeds.
Somewhere between his work and the popularization of running, the concept of running shorter faster got lost.
Probably it was the emphasis on marathons.
Running fifty to one hundred training miles a week is hard enough -- nobody is going to run that and then have energy to sprint! And here is where Dr.
Al Sears comes in with his PACE program.
He explores the way is "cardio" is currently practiced and examines it scientifically.
He makes a compelling case against long slow distance.
For one thing, this kind of stress forces your heart to adapt itself for distance, not speed.
It actually shrinks the walls of your heart.
However, high intensity exercise forces your heart to increase your reserve capacity.
Not many people die because their hearts just get tired and quit.
They die because something suddenly surprises and shocks them -- and their heart lacks the reserve capacity to handle the added strain.
Essentially, the PACE program involves running (or other activity) done in spurts over a fifteen to twenty minute period.
Never longer.
As you progress, you reduce your exercise time, not increase it.
You can do that because you can handle more intense exertion within a shorter time-frame.
As time goes by, you increase the intensity of the runs and reduce the amount of time between them.
And each repetition should get progressively more intense.
So your first one may be basically a warm-up, while your fourth ends with an all-out effort.
Many athletes are familiar with wind sprints.
PACE is similar, just more organized than your old football coach.
And this is similar to swimming workouts, though they don't stop after twenty minutes.
The first time I had a swimming coach who had us swimming twenty 50-yard swims on the minute, I thought I'd die.
But we adapted and soon were swimming a lot faster.
Dr.
Sears explains all the possible details and gives you all the tools you need to get started: charts, suggestions, workouts for many sports and exercise machines.
Of course, the intense effort for PACE does require that people see a doctor before beginning.
People who are significantly overweight and out of shape should start slowly.
Your early weeks may be little different than if you were walk/running as though training for traditional long distance cardio.
However, you should stop after twenty minutes.
If you feel like you could have done more, then do so -- next time.
Remember, you don't have to run ten miles to improve your heart and lung capacities.
As soon as you feel yourself huffing and puffing, you've pushed your body out of its comfort zone and started forcing it to become stronger.
As an added bonus, you'll rev up your metabolism so it'll continue to burn extra calories for the next day or two.
The scientific explanations and program details are all in this book.
Get it now if you want to live a long, healthy life.