Run for Life: The Anti-Aging, Anti-Injury, Super-Fitness Plan to Run to 100
July 28, 2010 by
Filed under Resources
Product Description
Over 35 and want to win your age group and run injury-free for the next 50 years? Run for Life lays out a plan for remarkably fit athletic aging that can increase strength and speed on less workout time and leave you i… More >>
Run for Life: The Anti-Aging, Anti-Injury, Super-Fitness Plan to Run to 100
“Run for Life” is an entertaining and interesting book, and has some very motivational aspects to it. But I believe the author wrote the book with some unusual assumptions in mind:
1. That the readers are all training for marathons and ultramarathons. Or, if they aren’t doing so, they ought to be. Most of the runner profiles in the book are of individuals who spend good chunks of their lives training for and traveling to participate in marathons and extreme races. Some of those runners are very interesting, like Bobbi Gibb, the woman who proved that women can run long races, and is a motivational figure from a historical point of view. But, most of the profiles are of folks who have spent their lives training for races and events that most of us will never enter. The book really ignores the average runner who might really just want to be able to run five, ten, or 15K for basic fitness.
2. That the readers have unlimited time and money to put into their training program. One example of the time issue is an athlete profiled named Michelle Barton who spends four hours a day doing the equivalent of a triathlon. She has the time to do that because she only works three hours a day. Barton lives with her parents, who also provide childcare for her daughter. Most of the readers are likely to work eight or ten hours a day and lucky to find an hour or two to work out. The author seems to be promoting certain products, like e3 Grips and Vibram Five Finger shoes. I believe the benefit of these products can be obtained by good form, without buying the products for the runner on a limited budget.
3. That the readers have the resources to get unlimited medical treatment for the wear and tear that this high-intensity training will impose on the body. The author even goes so far as to recommend traveling to India for joint resurfacing because it costs less there than in the United States.
4. That the point of life is to train, rather than training to make a person more fit for life.
This book does briefly touch on useful training techniques, like soft running and stretching exercises, but doesn’t go heavily into those techniques. I find three other books/products are more useful for keeping a runner healthy: “Chi Running” by Danny Dreyer with Katherine Dreyer, “Moving Toward Balance” by Rodney Yee and Nina Zolotow, and “The Stretch Deck: 50 Stretches” by Olivia Miller.
Update: One of the methods described in this book, barefoot running, is causing a rash of injuries. This illustrates that not all of the latest and “greatest” techniques are perfect. Just because a technique is new and trendy does not mean that it outperforms the traditional techniques. [...]
Rating: 3 / 5
The book is a mess. I get the feeling that the author decided to throw in everything he ever wrote that was vaguely related to the topic. And then some. There are “case studies” – personal success stories – that provide almost nothing useful. There are long interviews with Bill Rogers, Frank Shorter and others. Interesting, perhaps, but nothing we haven’t heard before and certainly short on concrete advice. There’s a long chapter on running form that contains almost no practical information. Rather then forcing us to hunt through the book for useful advice, why not simply make the book one-tenth the length?
Rating: 2 / 5
I bought and read this book after it was mentioned positively in Runner’s World. Unfortunately, there is a fundamental flaw in the book, which advocates low mileage training that includes sessions of high intensity sprints. The rationale for the sprinting is that it causes release of human growth hormone, which has multiple “anti-aging” effects. The evidence for this comes from controlled experiments, cited in the book. I took the trouble to read the original scientific papers, and found that the data were based on strictly on young persons. A follow-up study by the same scientist reported NO HGH surge in older persons, contrary to the long term “anti-aging..plan” promoted in the title. Sadly, then, the premise for this advice is based on naive reading of the scientific literature.
I am sorry to say there is nothing much new in this book. Sprint workouts can have benefits, but not the one claimed. And older runners need to approach full-out sprints with care for avoiding biomechanical injuries. The most interesting parts are the interviews with various personalities from the running world.
Rating: 2 / 5
A previous reviewer of this book felt that it is for serious runners only. I’ll agree with that – people not serious about running in general would definitely not be interested in running until 100.
The best part of this book is the numerous interviews with former world class athletes such as Frank Shorter, Rod Dixon, and Bill Rogers. Their insights are excellent! However, the frequent references to former Olympic marathoner Don Kardong as “Don Cardone” are annoying, and makes you question how much the author really knows about the sport.
Some of the suggestions are gimmicky. The author devotes an entire chapter to the use of small hand weights in correcting poor running form. It’s like a product placement add in a movie. A quick internet search will reveal that the American Society of Sports Medicine has found no benefit to these devices in controlled research. Maybe this should have been mentioned?
As a runner for 30 years, and a veteran coach, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for insights into how to extend their running career.
All criticism aside, I am really enjoying this book and gaining valuable insights.
Rating: 4 / 5
I’ve had a copy of Run for Life for a year, but didn’t feel compelled to write in until a couple days ago, when I read a review of new impact-reducing treadmillls in a weekly gear column that Run’s author Wallack writes for the L.A. Times (google “Machines to Help you take a load off”). This column reviews the most far-out innovative treadmills I’ve ever seen in my life, stuff being used by top college and professional teams for rehab and performance enhancement. They are not in Run for Life (maybe he’ll put them in the next edition), but they are typical of what I really like about this book, which has more innovative and helpful ideas in here than most of the running books I’ve read put together. And believe me, I read them all.
Run for Life is definitely not the same-old, same-old thing. Instead of shying away from radical new ideas, like most authors, who promote their own, single thesis, Wallack seeks out running innovators and researchers on the cutting-edge, a lot of them completely unknown to the mainstream, but whose gear and training methods are in every case being used quite successfully by a small cadre of top-level athletes. Then he combines all them in a comprehensive plan designed to stop running injuries and stop the ongoing corruption of aging. I think it’s exciting stuff, I think it’s logical, and I think it works.
You will see a few reader reviews here at Amazon that criticize these “odd” products and methods; if you read the “comments” to them, you’ll see Wallack fight back convincingly. That’s because he has the facts on his side, as these “strange” and “weird” ideas work. They only seem that way because we aren’t used to them. Because of Run for Life, I now water run, I do sprints, I grab my bike and hammer up hills until my heart is going to explode, I do a little CrossFit and other strength training, I occasionally barefoot run and run in Vibrams, and I use those fantastic e3 Grips. I’ve dabbled in all the “crazy” stuff in the book. And guess what? For a guy in his mid 40’s who used to get hurt all the time in running and seriously thought about hanging up my laces up for good, I not only don’t get injured any more, but I run a faster 10k – all on less total workout time. And best of all, I just feel super fit ……. and, yes, dare say it, younger.
Will I run to 100, as Wallack promises in the intro? Before, I would have thought that idea was stupid, impossible. Now I say “Hell, yeah!”
Rating: 5 / 5