Running, Aging, and the Heart

Some of us older folks made a decision somewhere along life's highway that we would keep running and competing as long as our legs held out. We would accept with as much grace as we could muster the compromises forced upon us by bodies that were no longer able to handle the really punishing phases of training. We would learn not to dwell on all the great times we ran when we were in our prime. We would slip back into the pack, motivating ourselves by now and again taking down some twenty-something who went out too fast, or by battling other geezers for age group prizes.

But mostly, we would commit ourselves to running as a "lifestyle" -- it's a blow to one's ego to even use that word -- and enjoy the heck out if it as long as we could.

In my case, I thought this decision was all about taking care of the aging sinews of my body -- the muscles and tendons that make up the running machine. I never really worried about the hydraulic system that made it all possible. I guess I assumed that my heart and lungs would continue functioning adequately, if not perfectly, or at least until my knees exploded or my feet and lower legs couldn't take it any more.

Well, hearts, too are vulnerable to the ravages of time and training.

Intellectually, I knew this, but it was underscored recently when I read an article in Wednesday's New York Times that described recent research on the hearts of aging runners who continued to compete at a very high level in endurance events (e.g., racing marathons and triathlons).

When Exercise is Too Much of a Good Thing

The article basically concludes that long, intense running is associated with increased risk of scarring of the heart tissue. I was careful in that last sentence not to say that the running caused the scarring. The research has not established cause and effect in humans. However, no one should be surprised that intense training and racing might carry some risks, as well as benefits, for the hearts of middle-aged athletes.

It would be nice to think that running is the formula for eternal youth, and it might be a better candidate than anything else we can dream up. But with aging, there's always a catch.

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On a side note, I continue to be fascinated by the extreme things that researchers make rats do in the lab. For example, in describing a study that seems to provide the first evidence of a direct link between heavy exercise and heart damage, the above-mentioned article says:

"Canadian and Spanish scientists prodded young, healthy male rats to run at an intense pace, day after day, for three months, which is the equivalent of about 10 years in human terms. The training was deliberately designed to mimic many years of serious marathon training in people..."

Does that sounds like the Kenyan training camp in Iten? I was hoping the article would go on to say which group of rats had the best treadmill marathon times, but they omitted that data.