How to run a perfect Mile
Exciting new research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology showed that running a Mile has the same mortality-lengthening benefits as a marathon.
By Farrah Storr, London Evening Standard
Not so long ago I was out at lunch with a group of sporty types. They were the sort of people whose wrists jangled with an assortment of smart bands that did everything from monitoring how well they ran and slept to calculating how big their bonuses were that year.
The women had all run half-marathons at some point, while half of the male contingent were bracing themselves for an Ironman Triathlon (a 2.4-mile swim chased by a 112-mile bike ride, washed down with a 26.2-mile run). They groaned about their times as well as the litany of injuries an eight-month training schedule had given them. This was, in fact, a rare lunch outing. They should really have been pounding the pavements, then having an Epsom-salts bath.
You see, in the past few years, marathons and triathlons have been the choice of exercise for alpha types hellbent on pushing themselves to their absolute limit. Places on the most popular races are about as tricky to get hold of as an 8:00pm table at Chiltern Firehouse — and in some cases just as expensive. There are the punishing training schedules, and pricey kit (special Triathlon laces for your trainers? Who knew?) as well as the small issue of sidelining your social life for half of the year.
These people could have saved themselves the bother. Because for anyone in the know, the true mark of a hard-ass athlete right now is the person who braves the Mile-long run. Just as HIIT training (short, intense bouts of exercise believed to force the body into a fat-burning state) has taken over from hour-long aerobic classes as one of the most efficient ways to get into shape, experts are now reviewing the significance of short, intense runs. And the Mile, long associated with Roger Bannister, who famously became the first man to run a sub-4 minute Mile, in 1954, is where the smart runners are heading.
Continue reading at: www.standard.co.uk
