I don’t know about you but when I think about running my thoughts quickly turn to long, and for me, boring, injury-making, distances. I’ve been there and done that. From 5 km to 10 km to training for a half marathon to stress fractures. Twice!
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
I mean the 5 km is pretty awesome. I’m training for one now. See Training for the Pride Run 5 km.
But it turns out that even 5 km is unnecessary to reap the big health benefits of running.
See A Shockingly Small Amount Of Running Can Boost Your Health. How small?
If you can’t imagine running for longer than 10 minutes, you’re not a lost cause in the running world. In fact, running for just 10 minutes, five days a week could be all it takes to reap running’s big benefits.
Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have found that running for about 50 minutes each week — or approximately six miles — can protect the body from risk for stroke, arthritis, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and even some cancers. A little bit of running might even teach you a few things about life.
Maybe 10 minutes is too much. Turns out that even 5 minutes has huge benefits, Running 5 Minutes a Day Has Long-Lasting Benefits.
Running for as little as five minutes a day could significantly lower a person’s risk of dying prematurely, according to a large-scale new study of exercise and mortality. The findings suggest that the benefits of even small amounts of vigorous exercise may be much greater than experts had assumed.
This makes me feel even better about my mile a day running streak. I’ve missed just a few days so far. I haven’t run on the days I’ve done long bike rides and on another day I’d walked about 5 km. I’m not that fast but I’m getting faster. And so far, fingers crossed, no injuries!
