Of course, the moment I say that I’m reasonably fit is the moment that heart attack is going to leap out at me. Or my liver explode, whatever.
But I am, sorta, a bit, reasonably fit. There’s a 28 km bike ride just by me (from the km posts) and it’s pretty flat and I do that in 65, 70 mins without really pushing. Happily do 50km if I know I’m going to be doing that much – ie, not pressing up hills along the way etc. Which, by the standards of cyclists, is pretty much nothing but for a mid-60s smoker and drinker isn’t horrendous. I can swim a mile and do, regularly (two/three times a week regularly) and the last time I did 150 metres was butterfly because all crawl is too boring.
But I just found out that I cannot run. Tried a couple of days back. Just 1 km up to the next km post on the road, then back to the bike. And I couldn’t get up above a shuffle.
It was me legs. My walking pace seems to be longer than I can manage as a running pace which is v silly indeed.
Is this a thing? Don’t run for decades and muscles, tendons, just don’t stretch to be able to do it? As I say, I can propel myself with my legs – bike, walking, swimming – but just not running.
If anyone knows the answer to that then the next one. Is this just a matter of slowly working up to being able to do it again? Not that I want to enter a marathon or anything but being able to run 5 km now and again would be fun*.
*Yes, I know, different definitions of fun, utility, but there we are.
If you cycle for an hour and swim a mile regularly, then you are in decent nick. I presume you walk bit too. If you haven’t run for years then your body probably won’t be used to it, especially if you were never much of a runner.
Why bother? There’s nothing more likely to bugger you up in your mid-sixties than taking up running. Knees, tendons, hamstrings etc could easily go if you take it too quickly and they will take ages to heal, during which time you might not be able to do any other exercise.
As someone who in his time has done a lot of running and has the back and knees to show for it, I wouldn’t bother. Cycling is perfect for cardio.
Tim should remember Jim Fixx, the famous author of books about the health benefits of running. He died, in 1984, mid-run, at the age of 52, of a heart attack.
To be fair, there was a congenital disposition to heart attacks in his family. His father had two heart attacks, one at 35 and the second one that killed him aged just 43.
Nah. His father was a jogger too. It was the mental illness was congenital
Biking and running use different muscles; walking different to running too. Cycling and swimming are great exercise and much better for you if you’re over 50 than running.
Cardio-vascular fitness isn’t really an indicator for heart attacks TBH, but will help you recover if you’ve had one – I speak from personal experience. The consensus seems to be moving towards a genetic predisposition in combination with other factors.
When I was younger and fitter I experimented with Nordic Poles. They are pretty good: the ageing bod can really stride out with their help. You won’t miss running if you can walk briskly.
But they do make one look like a Guardian-reading, Instagram-posting twat.
In which case human beings should use them too. With any luck the poles would become so unfashionable that Guardian-fascists would give them up. Maybe they could use pogo sticks instead.
Are these the thin canes I see people have in pairs? They generally go around in couples, so they look like a pair of clockwork ants tic-tic-ticcing along. It’s beyond me what they’re supposed to achieve. Since it’s often Scandies I just presumed it was some obscure Scandie rite. Scandies are weird anyway. Did you know all Finns look the same. Short squat with beards live in forests. Both sexes. Indistinguishable. The lissom blonde eyecandy? A spell of glamour. Why you never see them near mirrors.
They’re supposed to burn more calories and achieve greater cardio vascular effects by exercising the upper body as well as the lower, while at the same time removing some of the stress to the lower limbs. I have literally run un Pen y Fan and all over the Brecon Beacons in the past, but as I get older I find walking poles strangely attractive.
Their thighs tend to be a bit too sturdy for my taste, but each to his own.
I’m 64, and fit in the sense I’ve never learnt to drive, but live out in the sticks and am thus reliant on a bike and shanks pony; and I don’t smoke, rarely drink and do 50 press-ups on one gulp of air every morning when I get up … yet I can barely run from a standing start. I can run okay after walking briskly for 15 or 30 minutes, but there is still no fluency about it. Just a general stiffness.
And, you know what, I don’t care. Because it means I’m not going to be tempted to do regular running again, as I used to try once every few years, and end up knackering my knees every single time.
I went to Worcester races last week, and had eight minutes after the last to make the train home from Foregate Street station. It takes me 12 minutes to walk that distance briskly, but I was able to intersperse enough running among the walking make it up the steps to the platform with seconds to spare and out of breath. As long as I can still manage that, I am happy. I have no desire to run for 3 miles, and no health-based need either.
Impressive shading into unbelievable (if not an exaggeration, and the press-ups are proper ones)
Back rigid, elbows straight. As far as I know they’re proper ones.
I had done thirty for several years, because Bernard Samson, in the Len Deighton novels, has a sly dig at his ascetic American boss for doing thirty each morning. Well, I thought. I would like to be in decent enough shape to pull someone else’s wife, as the American does in the novels, so I started doing that.
Then, about a decade ago, I read one of those Daily Telegraph articles about How Super-Fit Are You? Ten Tell-Tale Signs, and one of them was the ability to do fifty press-ups, so I tried that and found it was possible. So I’ve stuck to that ever since.
And I desperately want to keep it up, because I’m deaf and live on my own with no immediate family, and I have a lurking terror of being hospitalised, alone and uncomprehending. And I know that you can maintain muscle mass as you get older by exercising it, but you cannot regain it if lost. And the retention of muscle mass is key to preventing all sorts of age-related accidents. So, that is my incentive.
By “elbows straight” I mean arms kept parallel with your body as your elbows go up and down.
I was discouraged to read that but relieved when I looked it up and reminded myself that it isn’t true. You can build muscle mass at any age, just not as easily when older. Which doesn’t mean you should drop your routine and eat cake.
I really wouldn’t worry about running, Tim, unless you think it might come in handy where you live. (Decent crumpet, crowded bar, that sort of thing.) Cycling and swimming is much better for keeping in reasonable nick.
If you’re going to run, start on a treadmill. It’s easier on your knees than the road or even a dirt track. And start slow and build up. I quit running at about age 65 when my knees finally revolted, and it took a few years before they felt normalish again. So, I’d concur with the general consensus; you’re doing fine, probably better than most. Don’t hurt yourself.
I was advised to re-start by running on grass
If you’re going to insist (persist?), I’d suggest the approach popularised by Jeff Galloway.
Basically, intervals of running and walking.
Or as we used to call it – Scout’s Pace. 50 yards jogging, 50 yards walking and repeat.
“Scout’s Pace. 50 yards jogging, 50 yards walking and repeat.”
Football fans might call that West Ham pace.
I agree with others – running isn’t the best.
There is a program called “Couch to 5k” – guess what that does?
Worth a look if you want to pursue this.
Agree with Geoffers: I’ve known several people try it with success, some of them going on to race longer distances (10k, half-marathon).
I don’t know whether the programme includes exercises to gently stretch your knee tendons but if you want to switch from cycling to running they should help.
Yes, Couch to 5k is an app on your phone, which talks you through what to do.
3 sessions per week, most under an hour. Starts with 50-50 walkimg and running, builds up to running a whole half hour.
It talks you through stretches before and after. You can do it on your own or socially. My village has a fun 25k group.
For any running, invest in straps to go round your knees and take the stress off them. And get good shoes.
It can be anything, lots of things. The way your particular body is stuck together, disuse, circulatory, even the booze. If you stop drinking for 6 months and it doesn’t get better not that, but that’s quite a dechallenge commitment, if the running doesn’t matter to you. Also everyone else’s advice to not start. Cycling much better for you, just make sure you know how to fall off because it does happen, and you bounce less when older.
I gave up doing triathlons a few years ago as my knees can’t cope with running. Perfectly good knees for day to day life but not for running. I can cycle but not the distances that I used to do. So now, age 67, I concentrate on swimming.
Are you developing the political economy of running about, or something?
Another vote here for not bothering. Back in 2019 I was very fit, certainly the fittest I’d ever been by specific effort. Lots of walking (with some jogging) every day; hitting some weights (at home, not gym) and the general physical busyness of renovating a house for moving into. And I had added in some running to make more time to speak to my terminally ill dad on’t phone as often as possible. One day I hurt my knee and continued to run on it to get home on time. And that was the end of fitness. Compounded by the demise of dad, covid insanity, loss of job, driving miles to look after mum, etc. Every attempt to get back in the saddle is limited by fucked knee. Totally out of the habit now, blobbish and cruising for a bruising. Even kneeling down to photograph a butterfly is a bastard.
If you must, walk and jog/shuffle. But ffs you’re in a good place – don’t fuck it up.
Ah, kernackered kernee has done for me. A year of using a walking stick, Covid madness, and then when getting back on the bike I thought my heart was going to explode. I try to do as much level walking as I can – something has destroyed my ability to do hills. Today I walked an hour out along the railway line path (so, nice and flat), spent an hour walking around the village recording architectural stuff, then walked home along the uppy-downy path on other side of the river. The main problem is that I seem to have a two-hour walking limit, by the time I got home after three hours I had pains in my hip, I’d got to a slow shuffling pace, and just wanted to collapse.
I managed to force myself to stand long enough to make a cup of tea then struggled into the living room and flomped down with it for an hour.
Just twenty years ago I’d do three hours leafleting in a morning, grab a sandwich, another three hours in the afternoon, then a couple of hours data entry.
Even kneeling down to photograph a butterfly is a bastard.
I’ll see some particularly annoying weed and without thinking stoop down to pull it up, and end up in crippling pain. Bugger!
The Knights of Knee.
One thing I’ve been able to keep up for the most part, is squats. So long as I keep weight even on both legs I’m able to do quite a few. This does help keep the dodgy knee stronger and I am able to go up and down the chalk hill slopes fairly well. It is uneven weight that catches me out sometimes. I’m definitely not giving up.
Let me introduce the theory of Quantum Running. One pace then look in the box to find out whether you are alive. If you are, stop.
Schrodinger’s knee.
Let go of running; mix up your walking.
Don’t just walk one speed. Walk faster, slower, backwards, sideways. To engage different muscles. And mix in some shuffles.
The technical name for your syndrome is “humblebragging.”
Never been a runner but I do a lot of walking in the beautiful English countryside, singing the old traditional countryside song “Kier Starmer is a wanker!” Well it works for me.
By cycling and not running you’ve shortened the tendons and also lost your rythym which is why you find it hard. If I was going to take it up again, I was advised to stop because of a back problem, I’d treat it like I did after a bad calf injury and that was very slowly as its too easy to overload muscles you haven’t used much.
Start at no more than 500m and as others have said alternate jogging and brisk walking. Each week at about 250m as long as you feel comfortable. Once you’re up to 5km start adding a longer stretch of running in the middle, then 2 to 3 longer stretches of say, 100m run 50m brisk walk. Make sure you stretch before and after, very important at our age.
You should limit yourself to 2-3 times per week to start and slowly build up to 4 to 5 times, the main thing is listen to your body and don’t over do it.
During Covid I bought a cross trainer than has a long stride and use that to simulate running and get my hear going. On my daily walks I try to get 2 or 3 steep hills in a couple of times a week to also get the heart going.
Good luck if you start.
PS Don’t forget your upper body and other muscles, weights are also important because from the age of 50 you start to lose muscle mass if you’re not careful and get gets worse the older you get.
BWTM! Over 50, weight training is critical for maintaining bone mass.
Gamecock has never found stretching to be of any benefit at all. Regardless of age.
There are, reportedly, “fast twitch” and “slow twitch” muscle fibres which one uses for, respectively, running and walking. So one can be thoroughly fit for walking but unable to run above a short jog (also, but rarely, good at sprinting but not much good at walking fast or further than the shops). The fast twitch muscles will atrophy if unused for a long time.
There is also a lesser cause in that walking and running while both using the leg muscles demand different amounts of effort from/puts different amounts of strain on the different muscles. After I tore one hamstring when I was 60 I was still able to walk but couldn’t run (and by the time it had adequately healed I was so out-of-training that I’ve never got back to where I was before). Walking demands more from the calf and quadriceps.
Of course tendons will stiffen if unused but the main problem is lack of regular use of your “fast-twitch” muscle fibres.
I’m on a low carb diet, so avoid spuds
Biking is much easier than running – you’re just moving you legs and not lifting your whole weight with each step.
If your knees are still good I’d just add some jogging to the mix.
Cor, all this talk of running, swimming, walking etc has right tired me out. At 17, when I left school, I decided never to take any unnecessary exercise, ever again.
Now, some years later, I have no joint problems, have not visited a doctor’s for a long time and take no medical aids or potions whatsoever. I drink a bottle of Malbec or Shiraz every night, sometimes washed down by a Scottish tincture or two.
I’m 80 next April.
I also am 80 next April and have no joint problems. Also I can walk home if there’s a train strike (when I was working I could run home if forewarned and took kit to the office).
RUN home? Blimey, I’ve never felt the need to run anywhere! And as for having any kit, well…
Back in the day, there was a TV programme called Superstars, in which sports stars were pitted against each other in a variety of sports, (except their own specialism) which required different abilities. The champion cyclists couldn’t run for toffee. I suggest the same may be happening for you. You’d need to educate your body to cope.