Run Forever: Your Complete Guide to Healthy Lifetime Running

“Aging begins when we are in our twenties,” he told me. “If you want to delay the aging process, that’s the time to begin running.”

We have no reason to believe that Rudyard Kipling was a runner, but he certainly thought like one. Especially when he wrote, “If you can fill the unforgiving minute / With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, / Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.”

“Physical activity produced beneficial effects in all individuals with any specific chronic conditions.”

To improve your body’s ability to run, only one organ is required—the one between your ears. You got it, the brain. If you can tap into the power of your brain, you will succeed. You will become a healthy, accomplished runner, capable of achieving any goals you aspire to.

Don’t be perfect. Be persistent: Runners tend to succeed in all areas of life, not just in running, because they are organized, committed, consistent, disciplined, and goal oriented. These are all brain functions. You need a plan, and you need to follow that plan. But you don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be persistent.

“When selecting a running shoe, the athlete should select a comfortable product using his/her own comfort filter,” Nigg concluded. “This automatically reduces the injury risk.”

I believe that every run is a new adventure, and every mile a gift.

To every thing there is a season—a time to run fast, and a time to run slow and relaxed.

The vast majority of nutrition experts point out that carbohydrates continue to be the dietary mainstay of the world’s healthiest populations—not just the fast Kenyans, but also the long-lived Okinawans of Japan and the thriving elders of Italy, Greece, and other Mediterranean countries.

Don’t run by the mile. Instead, run by the minute.