>I've run through stress fractures, heart procedures, flus and other physical ailments. I've run in frigid sub zero weather and in sweltering heat.
Respectfully, that sounds awful. Being sick sucks enough, the last thing I'd want or benefit from doing is physical activity during a flu.
Having experienced them, those runs were surprisingly not awful. In such cases I’ll jog a very slow mile, paying really close attention to what my body tells me (if I can walk, I can shuffle a mile or so). If anything, the act of getting out of the house and accomplishing something has more than once given me a morale and energy boost while sick.
The actually awful runs I’ve had are more of the "type 2 fun" kind (running in the desert, grueling trail runs), or the occasional hungover run before I quit drinking.
Did you have the flu (influenza) or a cold? Because I had influenza once and couldn’t even walk from bed to the kitchen.
I’m asking, because in German, many people call a regular cold a flu here.
But the chance to catch real influenza is like once every 20 years or so.
What about COVID-19?
I'm a daily runner and I had influenza in February, for the first time in 30 years. I had a high fever for a full week and could not even sit up in bed.
People tend to think any bad cold is the flu, and underestimate just how bad actual influenza is. In retrospect, the narrative of "COVID is just like a bad flu" is pretty accurate, because the actual flu is a pretty traumatic experience, and the idea of getting a worse version is terrifying.
Hah! I had that exact reaction. So many medicines are labeled like “X Cold and Flu”, like “X Stubbed Toe and Decapitation”, and people start thinking about them as similar.
No, they’re. Not. One is miserable. The other invites pleas for a quick and merciful death.
Also a daily runner (6.5 years) - the worst time to run is when you have a head cold. The impact from the run just pounds throughout your skull. I have run when I had influenza and Covid. Only one mile at a time, up and down my driveway, but it wasn’t pleasant. But it was really only bad for a day or two, and for the sake of the running streak, you run (jog/walk) your mile and you’re done (and you collapse back to sleep). Then, once you’re starting to feel a little better, the feeling of running just one mile (when you’re used to running 3 or more) is the hard part.
I also ended up training for a marathon while I had a mild pneumonia. I had no clue until I saw my doctor for a routine checkup.
When you have a running streak like this, you find ways to make it work. You’re often running with some kind of a knock, be it a cold, or some knee pain.
I am a runner. I had proper flu this year for the first time. I have never been that ill ever before. I could not even get upstairs to bed one night when I was at my worst.
My mothers advice on how to tell if it’s cold or flu: if someone dropped a big pile of money outside your window and you could get out of bed to retrieve it then it’s probably just a cold, if not it’s flu.
If you think you have the flu, it's a cold. If you think you're dying, it's the flu.
I had proper Flu this year, and almost exactly 4 weeks later caught COVID for the first time. Prior to these events I had a 5 year streak of being completely illness free, not a sniffle, not a head cold.
Both illnesses completely K.O.'d me. Literally 5 days straight of laying on the couch alternating between sleeping, sweating, or just groaning when I tried to move. So uncomfortable I couldn't even enjoy watching TV. I spent most of my awake time just kinda.... staring at the ceiling.
During the Flu on day 4 or 5 I was starting to feel a bit better, I was starting to care that my house was a bit of a wreck and the carpet in particular getting pretty gross (lots of dog treat crumbs). I did a half-assed job of vacuuming 2 bedrooms, the living room, and the den. Took maybe 15 minutes. That was the extent of my activity for the rest of the day, I was just wrecked. Had to sit down to catch my breath and get control of some violent shakes.
Next time I catch the flu I have to try going for a jog. It would probably put me into a coma long enough to sleep through the rest of the cold.
tip for the flu or cold: because they (viruses) get into your sinuses, and start to multiply there, not in the mouth or stomach, then would be good to put something in the sinuses to kill them. This needs to be done at the first sneeze! when there aren't yet billions of them. netipot, with cleaned water + salt is the way used for thousands of years. What is extra is to put pea size amount of cold pressed/virgin coconut oil in there (when water about 30c degrees, but not hotter) and flush with it. antiviral and antibacterial, gives nice coating also to sensitive skin inside sinuses. you'll skip the whole perioid of getting sick. works. trust me
My experience as well. The one time I had the proper flu there was absolutely no chance I would walk, let alone run, more than 10 meters inside the apartment. I was completely broken for five, six days and just a wreck the week after that. Awful memory.
My flus were probably covids, I think it tends to bounce around in the population in the post covid days while loosing strength.
I have one really bad case if flu 20 years ago. Maybe I'll have to give up my streak then. It will be a bit sad, but maybe good for me that it opens up for some other way of exercise.
Different people react differently to flu and colds.
I usually don’t get any colds at all, but I catch the flu once a year and need to be in bed at least for a week. So I started vaccinating since a couple of years and have avoided it so far.
My wife on the other hand catches every cold possible but her flu is gone in a couple of days.
Said that, my doctor has always strongly advised against doing any sport during flu or immediately after due to risks of heart infection. That’s something I’m going to follow, I’m not a sports professional and I have no need to risk my hearts health.
I ran a couple miles on a treadmill the last time I had COVID because I was going stir crazy from lying on the couch all week. It actually gave me a bit of a boost for the rest of the day, though I returned to feeling crappy the following day.
Yes, that mistake is common in English as well.
Different people react differently to flu and different strains are different. I remember when I was 30 I got the flu and I had enough energy to walk to the nearest convenience store to get lunch and enough energy to do an hour of driving practice a day and the rest of the time I lay in bed. I did not have the energy to read a book. I didn’t have the motivation to turn on the radio. It was awful. Glad I haven’t had the flu since.
In the ultra running community, it's common to do a 1 mile "test" when you're feeling awful. You start your run, and if it still feels awful after 1 mile you walk on back home and try again tomorrow. Do this until you can just keep going again.
It was interesting today to discover the concept of "type 2 fun".
I often wondered why people did these self-evidently unfun things, purportedly "for fun".
I think part of it is that I just don't think of pain as per se bad. A lot of people I know who struggle with exercise feel a little discomfort and act like its the end of the world. They get shin splits or something and they decide they can't run. I've had mild shin splits continuously for 15 years. It doesn't really bother me in the same way, I guess. When I get back from a run if I lightly bump my shins its excruciating.
I will say that now that I am getting older its getting a bit tougher - the pain is worse and lasts longer and real chronic pain kind of bums me out, but I just enjoy the challenge of trying to work around my body.
> I will say that now that I am getting older its getting a bit tougher - the pain is worse and lasts longer and real chronic pain kind of bums me out, but I just enjoy the challenge of trying to work around my body.
Please see this as your body trying to tell you something before you end up with a bad injury that could prevent you from running for weeks.
For me, shin splits subsided after I got more comfortable running shoes and shortening the distance covered during runs (i.e. ~5km down to ~3km, 5-days a week).
I think comfort/discomfort is a highly individualized thing where your range gets calibrated by your experience, and that modern western lifestyles have created a very narrow band of what’s comfortable for many people.
I’m a big Type II fun person and feel that there are all sorts of highly satisfying life experiences to be had if you’re able to tolerate some discomfort, but there has to be some deliberate practice of getting comfortable being uncomfortable to ease into it.
Some people get literally high when running. Some don’t. The get high types invariably posture as if they have more dedication or willpower. Funny stuff.
You're right, there is no such thing as willpower and we're all automatons moving through the universe like planets in orbit, helpless to affect our future or how we feel about ourselves or the world.
They might be unpleasant but still fun. And they may be painful but in reward you get to see places you would otherwise not. Or you may get to discover your limits, which are of course further out than just pain and discomfort. So there is absolutely enjoyment in these "unfun" things.
Plus of course the chance to humble brag online afterwards!
Just because you feel like shit and your head is saying "this sucks ass", there's also the endorphins being released, the feeling of achieving something, of overcoming your own limitations and stuff.
I mean it's not for me but I can see how in hindsight (it's always in hindsight, never in the moment) it'll be considered fun. Or at the very least a story to share with friends or the internet, which is also fun.
Did you not catch Covid? Even catching after getting the shots I still could barely move.
I barely felt covid, if not for temporary loss of smell I wouldn't think it was anything more than a moderate cold.
I've had those days where a 10-minute shuffle felt more restorative than a full night's sleep
Lymphatic system is actuated by your movement. Sure, it will work with just the little movements that your body does to keep in one piece, but for full performance so to speak you need to move around.
I heard so often that it's outright dangerous to run when you're sick. Does anyone with knowledge know whether this is true? The general vibes of this thread gives me the feelings that it's more like a inconvenience than straight up dangerous to your heart and everything, which is what I heard and believed up until now.
Depends how sick, I have frequently heard that with mild head cold, that has not gone to lungs it is good to run to activate immune system etc.
There is definitely such a thing as overtraining. I got my free testosterone down to 15 (reference range=35-155 pg/mL) and my total testosterone down to 96 (ref=250-1100 ng/dL). From histograms from various studies, I hit the 1-percentile of low testosterone as a 35yo male. That's... uh... not good.
This was due to a number of factors: excessive running (the equivalent of ~50-70mi/week), calorie restriction, and possibly carbohydrate restriction. Thankfully symptoms of low T (namely morning erections) resolved ~1month after ameliorating those 3 factors. (For anyone interested, look up "Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport".)
Mileage isn't my goal. Health is.
OP states "I've... invested into my own health", but I'm not convinced.
While I don't disagree that "team no days off" is probably not the ideal way to promote long-term health, I'd assert that most of the adult population in first-world countries are far more at risk from a lack of sufficient physical activity than from overtraining. Not dismissing your own experience (it sounds pretty bad) and I assume from context that you worked yourself into that hole, but we need to be encouraging people to be doing more physical activity rather than less.
> I'd assert that most of the adult population in first-world countries are far more at risk from a lack of sufficient physical activity than from overtraining.
You're using the wrong reference group here. Would you still assert that most people when narrowed down to those who are running every day are more at risk from a lack of sufficient physical activity than from overtraining? Because that's the group we are discussing – those either doing it or considering doing it.
Most of the adult population in first-world countries are not considering running every day.
As a former runner (competitive trackin/xcountry) and a current recreational runner - I cannot imagine never taking a day off is actually safe for your knees and joints. At least for me, I simply cannot run every single day without developing some sort of tendinitis or other mild pain/ache.
Yeah. I'm training for my first official marathon right now and my rest days are sacred. I imagine if it's low volume running it's probably easier, but still, the pain adds up.
Yep, I don't disagree with your point here at all. I'm a former distance runner who gave himself knee tendonitis by overdoing it, so I definitely accept the risk of overtraining. I guess that I was trying to make the point that almost nobody is at risk of that.
The problem is that the population which is not doing physical activity is the population uniquely at risk for overtraining. You can't put a couch potato out and have them run, run, run without them ending up with shin splints, stress fractures, and all the other issues that come from pushing too hard, too fast.
Saying we need to do more physical activity is not carte blanche to run yourself into the ground. No decent running coach would recommend running every day anyway. 3-4 times a week, and then let your body rest and recover. Training does not make you healthy or stronger. Recovering from the training makes you healthy and stronger.
I think the nuance gets lost in a lot of the "no days off" messaging
I mean you're right, but if you're fat running is pretty rough on the knees.
Source: was fat, ran a lot, lost weight, got runner's knee, am fat again.
100% relate (I was never overweight but gave myself knee tendonitis through overdoing distance running). It's my own (unscientific) opinion that cycling or rowing are superior options for untrained people to get more conditioning work in, albeit they do have a higher barrier to entry due to the equipment.
Maybe you already looked into barefoot running. I found it took the impact off my knees.
Oh yeah, haha
I've never done the like barefoot-barefoot thing but switched to minimalist zero-drop shoes.
It was in fact a game-changer for me, all of a sudden in my 30s I could run 10k without IT band pain (even when fairly athletic playing American football in my youth). But when I pushed more into the 10-mile range I got runner's knee - diagnosed w/o MRI or anything as patellar tendinitis although I'm sort of worried it was actually my meniscus.
I kept wanting to get back to it and kept re-aggravating. So I have now mostly given it up for like a year. Bad for my health of course. But as I move forward forced days off (ideally cross-training w/ swimming, kayaking, hitting a heavy bag, etc) just have to be part of the plan.
Have you tried non-running (indoor) cardio as a regular replacement? Jumping jacks, squats, jump squats, mountain climbers, even jogging in place. I do cardio everyday but running is only every 4th day. Of course, if you have access to equipment there’s always stationary bike and other machines like an elliptical.
Yeah, zero-drop shoes is what I mean by "barefoot" running. Landing on the balls of your feet, not your heel.
Maybe 10 miles is too much regardless though.
Was fat, walked a lot, lost weight, started running, still -25 kg.
But I'm not that skinny since "long time". Running 2-3x a week.
But the daily mile is not what will push you into overtraining. It’s just 7 miles a week. Training hard in calorie restriction is IMO a horrible idea though. You would need to make sure to burn as little carbs as possible and not do any workouts. Basically dedicating a block to losing weight instead of improving your running. Might still get faster, weight is a factor in running
But exercise along with calorie restriction will keep you from losing muscle mass and so your weight loss will be more from fat. I agree though, no need to train hard during calorie restriction.
Totally off-topic, but when did people start abbreviating testosterone to T? I noticed it a few years ago when TV commercials started airing promoting various snake oils to fix low T. But now I see it everywhere. Is it another idea that escaped body building forums?
It started on forums, bled into social media, and now it’s used by advertisers trying to capture the people who recognize it from forums and social media.
Interestingly, the businesses targeting this segment have pivoted into offering actual testosterone prescriptions, pill-mill style. They’ve discovered that if they can find a willing doctor then there are no consequences for writing mass prescriptions for testosterone as long as they can create a minimal paper trail documenting some symptoms. So people see an ad on social media or hear one on the radio, make an appointment, and the doctor quickly diagnoses them with “low T” based on vague symptoms like “not performing as well as I’d like in the gym”, and they get a prescription.
The business model is to charge a monthly fee such as $200/month. Once people start taking testosterone their body shuts off its natural production, meaning they feel devastated if they ever stop taking it. So the customer is hooked. Some people can discontinue and eventually recover, but most people who take it for years will have testicular atrophy such that they may never be able to live without testosterone injections again for the rest of their lives. This inconvenient fact is rarely communicated up front, of course.
I think it's a shame avoidance and marketing effort. It's not flattering for a man to admit he thinks he has low testosterone. Easier to talk about.
There is some fake shit no doubt, but you can have real problems that lower it. Kills dudes motivation, libido, etc and that kinda spirals towards depression sometimes. But it's not meant for long term use or meant to be given out as willingly as it is.
I've also seen how easily well-meaning habits (running, dieting, etc.) can tip into something detrimental, especially when the metrics become the goal. There's a fine line between dedication and depletion.
But how would you loose weight without calorie restriction?
Maybe this amount of running was excessive, but how did you even run such distances with T so low? (Ie how did you recover?)
I'm no expert on this, but I also read about this as I also tried calorie restriction.
You still have to keep your macros (and micros) in balance while on calorie deficit, which is even harder. Your body needs various things, you just need to optimize your food. Also, I think the main contributor for OPs issues was the fat deficit, which is very easy to fall into while you think you eat healthy a lean food. Fat is important for your hormone production.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26843151/
https://shilpidietclinic.com/low-fat-diet-and-hormonal-imbal...
In my experience(currently about 15kg into a 40kg weight-loss program), eating enough fat can also be very helpful for losing weight. It seems counter-intuitive, but it works for me. Fat contributes a great deal to satiety. My diet setup has been to have breakfast and dinner only, no lunch on most days. This way I can make both meals quite calorific, filling and plenty tasty. Crucial for maintaining adherence to the setup, which is by far the hardest part of weight loss.
When you have to go 7 to 8 hours without eating before dinner you want plenty of slow-burning calories. Long chain fats, protein, slow carbs, with plenty of fiber.
My typical breakfast ends up being one slice of bread with liver pate and cheese, another with peanut butter and either nutella(if I'm doing morning cardio or some other exercise mid-day. Lots of sugar in nutella, which gets used up immediately by the exercise anyway) or various kinds of jam with no added sugar(usually pear and apple, since they're not so tart and are pretty sweet without added sugar), and a protein pudding cup(20g protein). The bread needs to be whole-grain, of course. Ideally 100% whole grain.
This ends up being about 700 calories, which is a pretty substantial breakfast. And most importantly, it includes a lot of protein(from liver, peanut butter, cheese, the bread and the pudding), a good mix of saturated fats with plenty of SCFA and MCT from the cheese and liver, mono- and polyunsaturated fat from the peanut butter, and tons of soluble and insoluble fiber from the bread and peanut butter.
This tends to keep me full until dinner time, at which point I can typically eat up to 1300 kcal depending on how active I've been.
On extremely active days, I might either add another slice of bread to breakfast, or have a protein snack and some fruit after exercise, as well as electrolyte drink with sugar in it during(important both for energy and fluid uptake).
Anyway, I'm rarely hungry except for just before eating, which is the idea. I think this would be much harder on a low-fat diet.
When people say calorie deficit they usually mean low calories. Not 3000 kcal intake and 3300 burned which would be a healthy approach for a runner
A small calorie deficit alone won’t lead to major problems.
The phrase “calorie restriction” is often used in the context of life extension to refer to periods of very low caloric intake, near fasting. This would cause problems with hormone levels.
If someone is running everyday like this, do they actually even need to lose weight? Aren't they already very fit?
Also, testosterone also gets impacted by fatigue. Running is more fatiguing than lets say stationary biking or elliptical. So maybe try other forms of cardio to burn calories too instead of only running?
> If someone is running everyday like this, do they actually even need to lose weight? Aren't they already very fit?
Not necessarily. There's a reason the saying is "You can't outrun a bad diet."
Before I got my diet dialed in I was cycling every day, upwards of 10 miles a day with a couple 20 mile rides per week, and was still gaining weight because I ate like crap, and more importantly, still ate more than I was burning with all the exercise.
The average American consumes 3,864 calories per day. A moderately active male might have a maintenance of ~2,647 calories, give or take a couple hundred. Just eating 500 calories per day over what you burn will lead to about a 1lb increase in weight per week. A zone 2 run might burn somewhere between 500-600 calories per hour, so its easy to see how quickly over eating can add up and at a point it becomes basically impossible to "run it off."
There's other factors that play into it such as lean mass vs. fat, etc. but in general, you can be very active and still be overweight.
I understand what you are saying but OP is not an average American. They have been running every single day for 10 years, so chances of them already being very conscious about their diet are very high I think.
You can eat like shit and do a lot of exercise and be overweight.
I’m 90 kg at 180 cm. I ride my bike 450 km per week. A few weeks ago I did a 340 km, 3000 m elevation ride at 25.6 km/h and yesterday I did a 220 km ride at 27 km/h. Last week I burned 13,468 calories from cycling (this should be fairly accurate as I have a power meter).
I would say I’m quite fit, I can obviously ride my bike further and faster than the vast majority of people but I am definitely overweight and look fat.
While I didn't run this much, I used to run 50 km / 30 miles a week. My "cardio" was good, but I didn't lose weight because all the running made me 1. extremely hungry 2. too tired to cook a proper meal, 3. have a convenient excuse to eat bad...
"How could I not eat a second donut, I just ran 15k!"
I was not "feeling fit", though, I believe I had low T, and I stayed relatively fat, which is not great for your organs, liver values, heart, etc.
So even if you are able to run 50K a week, you may still be somewhat unhealthy due to poor diet and other factors, and some of them can be improved by losing weight...
For #2, meal prep is a valid strategy; double up on ingredients when you do cook, put the leftovers in the freezer for later.
I was too lazy to cook a proper meal for a good while, but I would make something in weekends. Since all portion sizes in shops are catered for 2-3 people minimum, I'd always have 1-2 portions left over. I had convenient 500ml freezer/microwave containers which was also ideal for portion control. Lost 8 kilos in 8 months without actively dieting during that period.
Mind you it was also a stressful period, with a new job and stuff.
I’m no expert, but you should be roughly as tired burning 200 kcal running vs walking vs biking. The difference will be how quickly you’ll burn those calories.
It's not really the type of exercise but the intensity that determines fatigue. If you walk for an hour you will burn 200 kcal and ready to walk one more hour. If you try to burn 200 kcal sprinting, most people would become exhausted before getting close.
wait what? you get morning erections when on low testosterone?
When googling, it seems to be the opposite. That morning erection is a sign of a healthy testosterone level.
He meant the opposite: They were absent.
It should be noted that this isn’t a truly reliable indicator like the internet suggests some times. For many people, they still get them but it occurs while they’re sleeping rather than at time of wake up.
Yeah I've always wondered about that. I haven't gotten them regularly since I was 16 - 17. But in my late 30's, I still have an annoyingly high libido, no issues in the bedroom, and testosterone in the upper range of normal.
Internet bro science about testosterone has evolved into something resembling a horoscope: If you read a list of symptoms of “low T” on the Internet nearly everyone will think they have a problem.
There’s a parallel problem where the testosterone replacement therapy industry has diverged from its original stated purpose of replacing missing testosterone. The trend now is to prescribe excessive doses, beyond what the person ever naturally had. It’s basically a doctor-prescribed steroids when overdosed, but that’s also what a lot of people think they want.
Even crazier, some of the TRT clinics are now prescribing anabolic steroid compounds that were only FDA approved for severe muscle wasting disorders and cancer patients. The subreddits even had scripts you could follow to trigger certain clinics to prescribe the steroids for a time.
Yeah that’s not true at all. Not sure where he got his info but it’s incorrect.
He probably meant absence of morning erections.
The site is cool but as a runner this is not admirable and not something others should emulate. Interesting how few comments call that out but perhaps not surprising if your audience admires The Hustle
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
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
My cousin played ice hockey when he was a teenager, and started playing again too soon after having a flu. That lead to a heart infection, and almost killed him. He never played ice hockey after that.
So yeah, please be careful when doing sports while sick.
Rule 0 of training as an athlete was: you do not train when sick
Rule 1 of training as an athlete was: you do not train for N extra days after N days of fever
You do not want a heart infection.
Keeping track of you morning resting heart rate will tell you exactly what is going on.
I came here to say this, running while being sick is incredibly stupid, more so for men.
i had similar experience as author. so run few times a week for 7 years.
i was run in pine forest(it produces air with antibiotics), sub zero, down to -20c(in light clothes and sneakers).
for simple throat and nose conditions it was immediately healing, body temperature under 38c.
there rule was - never stop. nor walk. only run(until get to shower). or will get ill. tested few times.
in hockey people does not seem to run all time
also, i was run on frozen randomized ice pieces, dirt and snow like things. i had to adapt my posture for that, basically it does not streess same joints same way, not like thread mill or flat city roads. it was good. rule was never walk. when i started to walk, slipped to ground fast.
How is it worse for men?
I was under the impression that the risk is higher for men than for women.
According to https://www.myocarditisfoundation.org/about-myocarditis/:
> Men however are twice as likely as women to develop it, but women do develop myocarditis.
Why more so for men?
I don't have a specific thing to back it up but from my exercise science degree(in another life) men are at a greater risk for pretty much all heart/cardiovascular problems.
It is only a mile and you can run really, really slow.
I am also a run-streaker (3 years by now). I am not proud of running when i have the flu. But I run really slow and only the required amount.
Effort comparable to going to the store to buy food and aspirin.
Just gonna say, as a fellow excessive exerciser... exercise doesn't make you stronger. It's the recovery afterwards and the resulting growth/adaptation that makes you better.
Don't let rest feel like weakness. It’s where the real progress happens.
You have to appreciate how short a mile run is.
And either way, yeah runstreak is probably not optimal for improving your stamina. I am sure there are more rigorous programs for that.
I've been running five miles roughly every other day for fifteen years. If I've got a flu or not feeling great I'll take a few days off, no loss. Not sure how one would objectively determine "stamina", but my resting HR is in the bottom 3% for my age.
Obsessively run streaking one mile every day sounds completely bizarre to me and a complete PITA.
Almost as bizarre as those poor bastards that I see doing laps around tiny parks / basketball courts (the monotony would drive me crazy).
A treadmill looks even worse to my eye though. At least they're getting outside?
If a treadmill was my only option. I straight up wouldn't run.
If you hate running and you've only tried it on a treadmill, highly recommend giving it another try somewhere nice outside.
I must be one of the few that prefers treadmill running. The fact that it requires zero attention turns it into meditation for me.
> Not sure how one would objectively determine "stamina", but my resting HR is in the bottom 3% for my age.
It's not testable at home but if you're curious, google VO2 max.
But the stats! The streak fail! That's what running is about, right?
Imo, this is OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) expressed as running stats, rather than thimble collections or hand washing. It's about gaining/regaining a sense of control of one's life.
I'm allowing that maintaining the streak is perhaps the prime motivation when you are finding it hard to drag one's sorry ass out of bed every day. So maybe it's a good thing if it keeps you running.
I stopped running maybe 7 or 8 years ago. This thread has me wanting to go back to a mile a day or so — I'm past 60 years old now and more concerned about my health than I used to be.
A sequence of 5k race times (and ages) from yesterday:
It will be good for you. Start with a mile/day for three weeks. From there the past days will push you forward.
I suffered from an eating disorder a very long time ago that shared a lot of the same mechanisms (thankfully my starvation survival instinct was stronger).
A healthy relationship with exercise does not look like this and I hate seeing this stuff promoted.
I am surprised by the emotions in this thread!
Where do they come from?
The running community is intense. As a former "runs way too much" runner, you get very into it and it kind of takes over your life, it becomes your whole identity. Until you get injured from it and it wakes you up.
Thank you for your comment about identity. Was it something I wanted or did it sneak up on me?
The 1000+ days behind me means something. And many days it is what pushes me through.
It would be nice if I could find a ramp down scheme, but then with something else to ramp up, otherwise it would probably be better to just keep going.
Just stopping on a random Wednesday, it would just feel very weird.
(I am not the person in the article, just another guy with a streak)
You have to appreciate how critical recovery time is to improving your strength/stamina/whatever.
We are talking about a level of effort that is less than people's commute or a simple walking of the dog. People exert themselves more than a slow 1-mile jog by vacuuming their house or carrying groceries home from the store.
It doesn't magically turn dangerous just because the activity is labeled "running".
I looked it up and running slowly at a 12 minute per mile pace is about 8 METs, and vacuuming might be around 4 METs so that doesn’t seem to be true.
Also running tends to be more repetitive and pounding on the joints which requires more recovery time than simply vacuuming. I’ve never heard someone get injured vacuuming but I know dozens of people injured from running.
> People exert themselves more than a slow 1-mile jog by vacuuming their house or carrying groceries home from the store.
As someone who vacuums and carries groceries but doesn't run, I find that pretty hard to believe. Maybe if you are a very fit runner? But then those other activities would hopefully also be easier.
Do you tend to avoid household chores or letting the dog out on your resting days?
Rest doesn’t preclude running. Most high end runners run every day. It’s very easy to run at recovery pace and feel better than if you’d done nothing at all.
I find the tendency of very amateur runners having very strong opinions about running, odd. There are literally decades of research, and while the particulars change over time, the macros tend not to.
Here's Nils van der Poel's (World champion, World record) 5k 10k speed-skating training-program.
He explains why he took Saturday and Sunday off ;-)
https://www.howtoskate.se/
For example:
"As I rested for two days my body would get a reset. On Monday-sessions I would always be well rested and ready for another hard five days. And if I weren’t well rested, if my pulse was not responding as usual or if my legs felt heavier than they usually did on a Monday-session, I would take notice early. I would know that something was abnormal before it became a real issue and I would throw in some extra rest days and avoid a negative trend."
If you are sufficiently trained, a 1 mile day is a rest day though.
Not when you have flu. Or a stress fracture on your leg.
No experience with a stress fracture of my leg and running. But I know when I had the flu and did a slow easy 1 mile run I felt much better after than before. Same thing happened with Covid.
When you have run for a while, you get a pretty good feel of what kind of pain / discomfort you can push through, and what kind of pain / discomfort is actually harmful.
I suspect that the original poster has a better sense of these factors, for their own body, than you do and is much more suited to make these decisions.
As someone who has been running a lot for past 30 years, I respectfully disagree. This is objectively a bad idea, no matter what the "factors" or "sense of" these factors is, or what the runner's subjective situation is.
This isn't really that simple. Studies keep coming out showing that even people undergoing chemo and other heavy therapies benefit from some exercise(ex brisk walks), showing upwards of 20-30% better results. For his fitness a very light run could be as taxing as a brisk walk for a common person and still bring some benefits in fighting his illness.
I don’t feel strongly on either side, but I do want to point out that “I am not proud of running when I have the flu” immediately suggests a course of action that could make you more proud. It seems that not-running when sick would make you happier? Is it really worth doing just for the completionism?
i am not sure about the OP or the motivation and I am not a Streak runner/mover myself, but I do see the appeal of it, that will keep someone moving and exercise more or less consistently. Overall maybe the bad it is doing on bad days, is compensated with the good it is doing on good/average days. It is a long term motivator. For me now that i was cycling about 2-300km per week last year, going to nearly 0 this year so far because life and stuff, makes it pretty hard mentally to get back into the saddle, because of reduced performance, fatigue and just the general feeling of what it felt like to be in a faster group ride that I would get dropped from and i need to work my way back up there in performance and endurance. Having a streak going might have helped with this.
The way I see it is this: maintaining a run streak can be hard, but what is even harder is taking rest days when needed and every time get back on it. The (amateur) runners that impress me the most are those that keep running for years, decades, not through some neverending streak but through determination. The skill to abort a long run streak without quitting running is admirable.
Ok, happy for you that you have the intrinsic motivation.
You seem to be equally intrinsically motivated to tell me what to do and not do based on your experience.
I am not describing my own motivation, nor am I telling you what to do. I am only describing what to seems to be the most difficult thing to do. It matches well the expressed view that "if I break the streak I might stop running for good".
Sorry if you feel pressured to do anything.
Then I would loose my streak and the magic would disappear.
I am not a pro athlete. I think there are many days where athletes go beyond what they should to win some gold medal in some competition.
This is for me only and I am fine with it.
Can you tell me what you think you'd do?
Ya, that's fair, arbitrary motivators are arbitrary, but they still give motivation. I strongly dislike running, so if it was me I think I would give up once I get sick, or likely would not start the streak to begin with. I'm not saying that's the right solution, just trying to address your question.
I have also done a couple longish run streaks, but would have rested if ill.
Why do you run with the flu of you feel bad about it? What is the point of fulfilling the "rules" of run streaking?
For me the by far biggest positive effect of run streaking was that I knew every morning when I woke up that I would something i enjoy that day. The training is too low intensity and volume to really matter and doing it for the rules would have felt pointless.
If you "know better" are you a "run-streaker" because of some innate need to not break a streak? Is the streak the thing that keeps you motivated?
I can see how you might worry that if you take off one day when you are sick that somehow you'll start taking more and more "sick days" out of perhaps laziness. But I also feel like someone with such a level of dedication would not be in much danger of doing that.
I was more surprised the doctors even let him run after a heart procedure.
Did he ask them?
It may come as a surprise to you, but doctors don't have any means of "letting" people do anything. They can, at most, advise.
Yeah I was in the camp of " tough it out" when I was younger. Now, I understand how and when to listen to my body and lrt it rest is as important as working out with it. When my body is under stress from illness there is no need to put more stress on it.
Worked with a guy who led the local running club and he'd run in nearly all weather. But even he admitted defeat after bundling up in heavy winter gear and doing a few blocks in -50F wind chill conditions.
I had an operation a while back, and had to give up running for 6 weeks (running increases blood pressure which can cause internal bleeding). I was climbing the walls waiting so I could step out and resume running.
One of the symptoms of the flu is aching joints. Running on aching joints may be damaging them, so I don't.
then don’t? not for everyone and that’s why it’s an achievement
It's honestly downright dangerous. I don't think anyone's going to _enjoy_ running after that.
The author sounds as though they still do.
[flagged]
I think you might be coming across as the moron here. Not someone who has done their ‘ritual’ for 10 years.
Let him live as he wishes.
I find the tenacity inspiring, although I have no intention of replicating the feat.
Why are you guys saying they if the author is clearly a guy?
The singular they has been common in English for almost four hundred years. If gender is unknown or irrelevant to the sentence, then they is completely grammatically correct.
If you're trying to make a political statement, then I think that pointing out the use of they is more of a statement than the use of it is.
this is not a political statement, the author's gender is just known so there's no reason to use they
At risk of… what? Being uncomfortable?