• Nancy Eckerson: Focus on strength training, nutrition and rest

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  • At some stage in your running life there will come a point when running holds a dual purpose. You will always do it because you love it, but along the way, a secondary voice will keep you going as well, the one that reminds you that you wantto keep running to stay healthy and feeling young.
    When you are younger, it is easy to skip a workout here and there, eat whatever you want, and get much less sleep than you need and see no negative effects. Just as on a long run when the miles pile up and you can’t quite even remember running them all, the years will start to pile on and suddenly you find yourself with an invitation to your 30th high school reunion and can’t believe that much time has passed.
    Luckily, as a runner, you don’t feel much older on the inside or outside, but paying attention to the things you can do to extend your running life beginsto make sense.
    Knowing how aging affects our bodies leads to training strategies that can help extend our running lives and three areas to focus on are strength training, nutrition and rest. We have all heard that muscles start to decrease with age as early as 35. The clinical term for this is sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle mass, strength and function.
    But what is generally thought of as ‘normal’ aging doesn’t necessarily apply to runners. A 2008 UNH study confirmed that decline in muscle function was due to physical inactivity and not age. In this study, inactive women ages 18-33 and 65-84 participated in an eight week strengthening program or were assigned to a control group; results showed that strength training caused similar gains in muscle strength in both younger and older women. In 2011 study, UNH Kinesiology researchers studying aging and other factors related to running economy found that lower body strength did not differ among age groups but flexibility and upper body strength was much less in study individuals (runners) age 60 and over. So while running is protective of muscle strength in the lower body, additional upper body strengthening exercise such as lifting weights is required to keep upper body muscle mass and strength.
    Another assumption related to aging is that as we get older, we gain weight. A 2007 study of over 8,000 runners published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise found that both men and women gained weight and increased waist and hip circumference over the seven years of the study even as they maintained the same weekly running mileage. Those who ran the most (over 29 miles a week) gained the least weight. So while the runners gained less weight in proportion to their levels of activity, they still gained.
    One strategy to avoid this is to up your running mileage as you age. Another is to carefully examine your eating habits and (sadly) admit that while you may have been able to eat just about anything when you were a younger runner, this may not hold true as you get older.
    And finally, the topic of sleep and rest days — a study published in the journal Lancet found that lack of sleep led to higher cortisol levels and interfered with glucose metabolism which both can affect running performance. Other studies have found that lack of sleep meant longer recovery time for muscles. In any case, running and exercise-induced muscle damage requires rest for repair, and the recovery period tends to increase as we age. The advice all runners hear to ‘listen to their bodies’ becomes more important as we age; we may require greater rest periods between harder workouts, and more sleep for example.
    The best goal to have as a runner is to be able to keep running. Age only gets as much relevance as you are willing to give it. If you assume you are too old to do something, it becomes a self-fulfilling truth.We may have to adjust our training as we age, but if you look to the many masters and older runners as inspiration, you’ll find a vibrant, healthy group of athletes who continue to train and race and enjoy what running has to offer.
    Running Notes: The turkey trot season has begun. On Nov. 17, try the Tiger Trot 5K and 10 Miler in Hampton Falls to benefit the Lincoln Akerman School PTO.

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