Is It Better to Walk or Run?
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/is-it-better-to-walk-or-run/
I wonder if there is a confounding factor in that runners have generally more healthy behaviors than walkers (clearly both have better behaviors than couch potatoes) which could explain the weight discrepancy. It was interesting (this isn’t the first time I have seen this) that the walkers were overall somewhat more healthy than runners (though it is not clear to me if ‘running’ is distinct from ‘jogging’; when I was a kid I could sustain 10 mph (still slow compared to my cross country and track team mates), now I am doing pretty damn good to sustain 6 and even that feels like a shamble rather than a jog). I have tried (with mostly success, though less so in the dead of winter) to walk or jog 10-20 miles per week. I am still fat (at least 60 lbs over weight), but perhaps less fat than if I had done nothing (for certain if my father and uncle are any guide). I am sure that much would improve if I could find a way (that doesn’t require draconian changes to my lifestyle!) to get off (and keep off!) the excess blubber, but based on everything I have read it isn’t the scale that ‘kills you’, it is the sedentary lifestyle. In that respect I believe I am much better off than even the skinny couch potatoes (I have read several reports that show clear statistics to that effect). However, that 60 lbs is extra pounding on my knees (and bobs up and down annoyingly as I jog; really gross) and no doubt slows me down to the point where I generally wind up doing at least as much walking as I do jogging (meaning generally only half that 10-20 miles is jogging). This article implies that if I could ratchet that percentage up I would weigh less, but it also implies that my overall health would decrease. So many confounding issues!
Before I moved here, ten years ago (age 62), I was walking 10 miles a day, in Phoenix heat, at a constant 14 minutes per mile. I think I was in better shape than I had ever been in my life, except immediately following boot camp, when I was 18.
I could not jog or run. It wasn’t a question of wind, it was a question of pain in the knees. I weighed 130 (15 pounds below my “ideal” weight).
Running is for youngsters. I did it quite well and fluidly when I was a youngster.