Respectfully, if this guy has been doing it for ten years, it’s obviously not so bad as you make it out to be. It’s not a grind set mentality, it’s just one guys choice to exercise in a certain manner.

I am a runner. I train at what is probably the 80th percentile for longer distances, so I am by no means an expert. But I do understand that if you are running 7 miles a week, most of the time, your body isn’t going to be that beat up, especially if you are taking it slow.

It's not about the running but the "running through sickness and fractures". It's just plain stupid to risk your health like that. Great that it worked, but this is nothing anyone should blindly emulate. Have fun with the heart infection because you needed to run for virtual internet points.

Scientific information on the topic is quite sparse. There are ascientific recommendations about vigorous activity that probably have some merit, but unless you are terribly, terribly ill, a very light workout is not known to increase adverse health outcomes.

Read it out loud ‘7 miles a week’

Most people sit at a desk for 40 hrs a week. That is way more damaging to your health.

Yeah once I read that I realised it wasn’t extreme at all.

I take ~2 mile brisk walks every day (the kind where my pulse will average to 130), interspersed with casual multi-mile hikes up the mountain trail nearby. That’s just my baseline cardio and movement to feel good and keep myself healthy.

What I’ve learned is a lot of people would call a “brisk walk” which takes your heart rate to average 130 “a run”. A runner’s definition of running can be quite different to a layperson’s.

I always thought (and still do!) it's about whether there are moments when both of your feet are off the ground, not about the pace.

Isn't that running?

If my heart rate is 130, that's a run for me, all be ot slow. 33-35min ish 5k.

A brisk walk would be 95ish

Lots of change in elevation, with steep hills, stairs etc. For comparison my resting heart rate is ~57 on average, and for more intense workouts I can go up to ~160 for periods of time, so I think my range is healthy. But I can get a lot out of a brisk walk in this terrain ;) I've found it's a lot better for my knees than running or jogging, which I've practically replaced in favor of mountain hiking and said brisk walks, as well as indoor cycling when the weather is bad.

Ten years might not be long enough for long term damage to make itself known. In fact, most of the time, it's nowhere near long enough.

However, the cardio should help. With overall health that is, not whatever blown knee or hip or whatever he'll have to deal with later.

It worked out for this specific person under these specific circumstances with a methodology he might have not even fully shared.

You should not conclude from that, that it is healthy for every person to do so.

> with the occasional 0:01 run to be sure I get one in that day

> i call the one-milers "streak savers"

If that game helps, fine.

I believe that he means 00:01 as in one minute after midnight and not 1 second runs. The minimum distance is a mile for his streak I believe

Do you think it matters what they mean? It's a game with arbitrary rules. If the game helps then fine.

I (still!) have an uncle who had a similar mindset, broke his leg half way through a race and only realised when he stopped at the end, that he couldnt walk any further

finally when they had to (successfully) defib him during a race, that shook him into assessing his health not running for the sake of running

There's a mindset with distance runners that I have seen over and over, just sometimes way too much of a generally good thing

as a runner, i love the site.