Run for Life: The Injury-Free, Anti-Aging, Super-Fitness Plan to Keep You Running to 100 [Paperback]

Roy M. Wallack LINK TO PICTURE BELOW (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 24, 2009

Want to run fast and injury-free for the next 50 years? In Run for Life, the co-author of Barefoot Running Step by Step lays out a comprehensive plan designed to help you do just that. L.A. Times fitness columnist and endurance athlete Roy M. Wallack says new muscle- and joint-preserving techniques and technologies put life-long running within everyone's reach.  "Yes, you can run to 100," he says. "And not merely live to 100 and shuffle along when you get there, but do what few, if any, have ever done: Actually run a 5k, 10k, or even a marathon on your 100th birthday." Traveling the running world from Kenya to Tahiti and Boston to Badwater in search of super-fit running longevity, Wallack talks to top coaches, athletes, and researchers and synthesizes new running methods, products, and fitness regimens into a life plan for runners he summarizes as:  * Run Soft * Run Less * Run Stronger * Run Flexible * Run Straighter * Run Faster.
At the core of the  Run for Life plan is a one-two punch that addresses the two oft-ignored factors that cripple all runners: the natural muscle and VO2 Max deterioration that starts at age 35, and the joint deterioration caused by running itself. Featuring 10  oral-history interviews and advice from greats such as Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, Rod Dixon, Helen Klein, Laszlo Tabori, Bobbi Gibb, and Dr. Kenneth Cooper, Run for Life brims with innovations:
·Soft Running form: The proven way to cut knee-shock -- and injuries -- by 50%;
·Barefoot Running: Why it strengthens feet and can even eliminate impact.
·Vertical Arm Swing: Why a perfect pendulum is faster and safer than  cross-chest swings;
·HGH Strength Training: Radical high-intensity exercises that fight aging and injury;
·Ultra Intervals: Short, hard sprint workouts that cue muscle growth and instant speed gains;
·High-tech Water Running: Joint-safe pool tools used to set the half-marathon world record;
·Runner-specific Yoga: Exclusive runner's warm-up from famed multisport yogi Steve Ilg;
·Bionic Hips and Knees: The operations rejuvenating broken-down Baby Boomer runners;
·Perfect running posture: Unique postural exercises to straighten you out and speed you up; 
·Runaway Weight Loss: Slight changes in diet timing that can cut fat and race times.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Lots of inspiration here. Run for Life is filled with advice that should interest athletes of any age who are trying to stay in the game as long as possible. What attracted me to the book is that the author is not only a credentialed athlete, but that he did lots of homework. The medical/technical information is cutting edge. Research shows that we can generate the stuff of youth (growth hormone) with specific kinds of training. The author has surveyed the field to see what has and is working for athletes who defy the aging curve, and is not shy about exploding myths and confronting the fact that the endorphin high that addicts so many to long workouts and high carb diets has a steep downside. Without the muscle mass preservation of resistance training, the postural, range of motion, and meditative benefits of yoga, and the hormonal drive enhancement of interval training, the very long slow stuff will grind one down. Get this book to find out how to remain fit in a balanced, tech-savvy way. Roy has done a ton of reading and research for you. --rickstrongcafe.blogspot.com

Run for Life is a 'must-read' for any runners who want to run the rest of their lives. It's chock full of legitimate and innovative methods aimed at offsetting common running injuries like pool running, barefoot running, and midfoot/forefoot techniques, as well as a few radical concepts like high-intensity all-out, 30-second "Ultra-intervals" that purportedly build speed on limited training time. The book is replete with expert testimony and examples, and has a rich collection of interviews with the likes of Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, Helen Klein Rod Dixon, and Dr. Kenneth Cooper, among others. --Running Times magazine June 2009

This entertaining blizzard of information, with how-to training guidelines and photo sequences of effective exercises, includes a wide range of advanced training strategies for long-term running health. But what makes it ultimately worthwhile, and not just a fascinating opinionated blog, is that Wallack submits these cutting-edge ideas to rigorous proof and expert testimony, in each case provides examples of big-time people who have succeeded with them. --Slowtwitch.com

This is an awesome book that I actually read in one sitting! In a witty and conversational voice, Roy Wallack has crafted a very informative book in Run for Life, which details a life plan for running. A great read, it's full of oral histories of stars and everyday runners, and packed with practical how-to information --ncrunnerdude.blogspot.com

About the Author

Roy M. Wallack is a Los Angeles Times health and fitness columnist and former editor of Triathlete and Bicycle Guide magazines. A life-long runner and participant some of the world’s toughest running and multisport events, including the Boston Marathon and the Badwater UltraMarathon, the Eco-Challenge and Primal Quest adventure races, the Paris-Brest-Paris, TransAlp Challenge, and La Ruta de los Conquistadores road and mountain bike endurance races, and the TransRockies Run, he finished second in the World Fitness Championship in 2004. Wallack is a contributor to Outside, Men’s Journal, Runner’s World, Competitor, Bicycling, Mountain Bike, and many other publications, and the author of The Traveling Cyclist: 20 Worldwide Tours of Discovery (1991) and Bike for Life: How to Ride to 100 (2005), which lays out a plan for athletic longevity through cycling.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing; 1 edition (February 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1602393443
• ISBN-13: 978-1602393448
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #363,038 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

For years now, Roy M. Wallack has been telling the world how to ride a bike up a 14,000-ft. volcano in Hawaii, stay fit until you're 100 years old, and how he sweeted-talk his way out of the gulag when he got caught in the USSR without a visa. He's also edited magazines (Bicycle Guide, Triathlete), written for others (Outside, Bicycling, Runner's World, Muscle & Fitness, Consumer's Digest, even Playboy a couple times), authored a fitness gear column and features for the L.A. Times, and never turns down an opportunity to do a crazy athletic event that he isn't trained for. In fact, that's how he became the World's Second-Fittest Man in 2004 (you have to keep reading to hear the whole story). He has authored/co-authored five books: Barefoot Running Step By Step (2011; co-authored with barefoot guru Ken Bob Saxton); Bike for Life: How to Ride to 100 (2005), a super-fit longevity plan for cyclists; Run for Life (2009), which takes the fit-forever concept to running (and includes 200 photos and illustrations of stretching, weight-training, and postural therapy routines); Be a Better Runner (2011; co-written with heart-rate guru and legendary athlete Sally Edwards); and The Traveling Cyclist: 20 Worldwide Tours of Discovery (1991, Doubleday), which describes his thousands of miles of bike trips around the world in the 1980s, including the first-ever into the Soviet Union, in 1988.

FITNESS FOR THE LONG RUN -- AND LONG RIDE

As an unremarkable Baby Boomer runner-rider-triathlete-tennis player determined not to slow down, this former collegiate wrestler started researching athletic longevity when he hit 40 -- and struck paydirt. Roy "broke the news" on several important quality-of-life, fitness-performance, and injury-prevention stories that became pillars of his books and increasingly common fitness knowledge, including the scary cycling/osteoporosis connection (Bicycling, 2003); the injury-reducing effect of the Pose Method (Runner's World, 2004) and barefoot running (Men's Journal, 2005); the corrective, career-saving potential of postural therapy for runners and other athletes (Competitor, 2001); the untapped economy, power, and knee-friendliness of "butt-centric" pedaling (Bicycling, 2004); and the fountain-of-youth effect of all-out intervals and rapid-contraction weight training (Outside, 2006, and Men's Fitness, 2002), which strengthen the body by initiating release of a basket of hormones, including HGH. He was also one of the first to report on Crossfit, the revolutionary and now-wildly popular high-intensity fitness program (Men's Journal, 2005, and the L.A. Times, 2006), and on the new hip-resurfacing operations restoring crippled runners and triathletes to their full-speed glory (Competitor, 2008). He introduced the groundbreaking concept of a training-zone "Black Hole," developed by renowned sports researchers Seiler and Esteve-Lanao, in the December 2010 issue of Outside magazine.

Using himself as a "guinea pig" for the training, technique, and nutrition stories he writes, Roy has survived some of the world's toughest endurance events, including last October's Himalayan 100-Mile Stage (running) Race, the Badwater UltraMarathon, the week-long, round-the-clock Eco-Challenge and Primal Quest adventure races, the 750-mile Paris-Brest-Paris randonnee, and multi-day mountain-bike races such as the Trans-Alp Challenge, BC Bike Race, Trans-Rockies Challenge, Breck Epic, and Costa Rica's La Ruta de los Conquistadores, the latter often labeled "the hardest race on the planet." Despite all that, he says that his greatest physical, mental, and emotional test actually came in 1994, when he rode 800 miles on a tandem bike from Nice to Rome with his earnest but unathletic bride on their honeymoon. The marriage survived the ride, which produced a son, now 16, and the the future Bike for Life's Chapter 12, a detailed study of the tricky issues involved in reconciling significant cycling and significant others. In 1999, in the name of science, he ran the Boston Marathon on five days and 34 miles of training while adhering to a radical new "soft running" technique -- and almost set a new PR. The lessons learned that day in Boston became Chapter 1 of Run for Life.

SECOND-FITTEST AND TRYING HARDER

Finally -- proudly -- Roy is officially the world's "Second Fittest Man," having finished second in the World Fitness Championship in 2004. In fact, it looks like he'll be the second-fittest man for the rest of time, as the event, sort of "an Ironman with iron" that was sanctioned by the Guinness Book of World Records, was disbanded thereafter. Held in a gigantic YMCA in Plano, Texas, it included a 2-mile swim, 10-mile run, 10-mile power hike, 100-mile Lifecycle, 20-mile row, 20-mile elliptical, 500 squat thrusts, sit-ups, and hanging legs lifts, and lifting 500,000 pounds of upper-body weights. He completed it in 21 hours and 59 minutes, putting him a couple time zones behind Rob Powell, the Guinness Book champion, but comfortably ahead of Dan de Jager, a young adventure racer from Sacramento who couldn't swim. Since only these three people (out of hundreds supposedly registered) showed up for the contest, that more or less guaranteed 48-year-old Roy the athletic immortality he'd long dreamed of. ("With great achievement comes great responsibility," he said when it was over, just before collapsing into a deep sleep. Bike for Life and Run for Life soon followed.)
For the full story on Roy's historic Second-Fittest triumph, plus a slide show of 30+ years of his bike-touring around the world (including the first-ever bike ride into the Soviet Union, in 1988), his acclaimed TV appearance with timeless "Brady Bunch" beauty Florence Henderson, and his rousing, poetry-laden induction into the 24 Hours of Adrenalin Solo Hall of Fame, go to http://www.bikeforlifebook.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, Bad Marketing Hook, May 15, 2009

By 

Robert Trab - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Run for Life: The Injury-Free, Anti-Aging, Super-Fitness Plan to Keep You Running to 100 (Paperback)

Here's a backhanded compliment. On the one hand, in Run for Life author

Roy Wallack has produced what looks like a very effective life plan for

running, with new ideas and tools that ought to make you a healthier,

stronger runner. Although many ideas were new to me, I found myself

nodding to myself at times "of course that makes total sense-----I'm

going to do that from now on' ------ such as those "Ultra-Interval"

30-second sprints, which I did on land and in the pool, and felt

stronger after a week. After three weeks, I beat my best 5k time over

the last 5 years on a treadmill by 12 seconds, and wasn't even really

pushing it. I can't wait to do a real race and see what happens. On

the other hand (here comes the backhand) , Wallack shot himself in the

foot with his marketing hook of "Running to 100'--- which will make

people think the book is only for old people. Listen people: It's

definitely not. It's not even just for people over 35, "when the body's

natural deterioration begins, as Wallack puts it. I would go as far

to say that a 16-year old beginner highschool cross country runner

would do himself a lot of good to use this book as his bible. The

detail about non-heel striking form, pedulum arm swing, and barefoot

running is invaluable, and thats just the tip of the iceberg here.

But alas, "young" people ---- and I mean fit, non-injured runners under

40 probably won't pick up this book because of that "age 100" angle.

Even older runners may not, like Bill Rodgers, who in his fascinating

interview said "Run to 100? That's so far away I don't even think about

that." That said it all to a marketing man like me. Bill's over 60 now

(just finished Boston the other day in 4 hours) and has even broke a

bone his tibia due to over-running, but the "100" angle still does not

resonate with him yet. It's a shame. The book could have stood stonger

on its own without this angle. Run for Life IS a great book, engaging

from the get-go even merely as entertainment, but it's fatally flawed

marketing hook may scare away the running masses of ALL AGES who could

benefit from it.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This Book Delivers, February 19, 2009

By 

L. S. Dibble (Syracuse, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Run for Life: The Injury-Free, Anti-Aging, Super-Fitness Plan to Keep You Running to 100 (Paperback)

I have seen a lot of books about how to run faster, or how to run better in specific events, but this is a book about how to run for more years without injury and about how to keep enjoying a sport that has become such a big part of my life that it is worth learning some techniques to safeguard my future ability to participate both recreationally and competitively. The book has a strong emphasis on what the author refers to as a "soft running form". He talks about his own experience learning to run soft using the e3 hand grips and some coaching. He briefly reviews the Pose method and refers to Chi running as well. He also talks about barefoot running as a way to acheive a soft running form. There is less emphasis on the downsides of these techniquees, but they are mentioned for fairness sake. I found this part of the book the least helpful since I am a forefoot/midfoot runner already, and tend to find it leads to problems with plantar fasciitis which one of his experts reports as a downside to these methods. The remainder of the book is really excellent and very motivating. There is a lot of good information about strength training/weight lifting in a way to stimulate the natural production of human growth hormone which may work to keep our bodies youthful and strong; flexibility/stretching & yoga to keep us from becoming bent out of shape, hobbled, hunched over; crosstraining to preserve our joints and prevent osteoarthritis, and other injuries; innovative ways to do interval training so we can stay fast despite getting older. There are multiple interviews with some great running pioneers. Its hard to say which is my favorite. Each has something to offer. They talk about their running careers, their injuries if they have any, their contributions to the running community, which many have made. Mostly they give their advice of how they stay fit and active and one can learn what one should avoid and what one should do to stay healthy and competitive for the duration.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Premise of high intensity sprints does not apply to older athletes, October 5, 2009

By 

Rationality and Reason (Monterey, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Run for Life: The Injury-Free, Anti-Aging, Super-Fitness Plan to Keep You Running to 100 (Paperback)

I bought and read this book after it was mentioned positively in Runner's World. Unfortunately, there is a fundamental flaw in the book, which advocates low mileage training that includes sessions of high intensity sprints. The rationale for the sprinting is that it causes release of human growth hormone, which has multiple "anti-aging" effects. The evidence for this comes from controlled experiments, cited in the book. I took the trouble to read the original scientific papers, and found that the data were based on strictly on young persons. A follow-up study by the same scientist reported NO HGH surge in older persons, contrary to the long term "anti-aging..plan" promoted in the title. Sadly, then, the premise for this advice is based on naive reading of the scientific literature.

I am sorry to say there is nothing much new in this book. Sprint workouts can have benefits, but not the one claimed. And older runners need to approach full-out sprints with care for avoiding biomechanical injuries. The most interesting parts are the interviews with various personalities from the running world.