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

by Roy M. Wallack

Book Overview

Over 35 and want to win your age group and run injury-free for the next 50 years or even longer? Run for Life lays out a plan to help you run to 100. Traveling the running world from Kenya to Tahiti... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1602393443
• ISBN13: 9781602393448
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

The Perfect BORN TO RUN Companion

Now that you've read Born to Run, the bestseller by Christopher McDougall, (if you haven't you've obviously been under a rock), then you are ready for Roy M. Wallack's Run for Life. When I bought Wallack's book in March, I was blown away by the number of innovative and quite practical ideas it contains for running faster and longer, such as a "soft" running form, a vertical arm swing, the super-intervals, HGH strength-training, even barefoot running drills. Although they are hard to argue with (soft running like the Pose Method is proven to reduce impact and injuries by 50%, and personally, the vertical arm swing worked instantly for me; I felt faster on my first run). I knew that my runner friends would be too tradition-bound to try most of them. In fact that's just what happened, they were quite dismissive when I raised the subject. Typical runners. But, then Born to Run comes along a few months later on the New York Times bestseller's list and their attitudes do a 180. They read Born to Run and suddenly they are all fascinated with once-crazy concepts like barefoot running. Suddenly they are worried about getting injured and want to run in minimal shoes like the Tarahumara Indians. It appears that "Born" has converted untold thousands to some of the same concepts that Wallack outlines in Run for Life, in quite exacting details. With many photos and drawings, Wallack's excellent manual tells you HOW to do what McDougall's excellent adventure has convinced you TO do. Bottom line: Run for Life is the perfect companion for Born to Run.

Run... Rocks

Roy Wallack is a guy always thinking about and doing all kinds of exercise. It might be with new products, weird methods & people or just reaching back and finding that last bit of energy to top out a steep climb. His message in "Bike For Life" and now "Run For Life" is, finding a way to be a lifelong athlete. It comes down to expanding ones understanding then interlocking lifestyle & training. Roy offers well researched methods interspersed with his own real world stories & interviews with a cast of characters, including many of my running heroes. The underlying message is, strength & balance through focused training. Aging means that we have to adjust and broaden our base. Our bodies will no longer tolerate or repair injuries related to bad form, lack of core strength or overindulgence.

Don't Judge This Great Book By Its Cover

I saw RUN FOR LIFE when it first came out about about 5 months ago and was so turned off by its goofy cover that I wasn't too motivated to buy it. It looks like an Italian flag overlaid with a photo of a happy young woman and man who clearly aren't real runners. Yet its subject matter of "running to 100" and staying "super-fit" as you age intrigued me as a dedicated 43-year-old runner who can't imagine doing anything else for the rest of his life. Plus it has big interviews with famous names like Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers. So when I read a nice review of the book in Running Times in May and a couple of rave reviews from bloggers [...] who loved the book but also slammed its looks, I figured I better not judge the book by its you-know-what. After 3 weeks, the verdict.......... RUN FOR LIFE is an eye-opening book unlike anything else out there in the running book market. It supports its quixotic premise that we all can keep running into deep, deep old age with a cornucopia of new ideas and products that I'd never heard of before: there are "hand orthotics" that straighten you arm swing, resistance water- running devices that hammer you hard without bopping your knees, and 30 second, all-out, leave-you-heaving "ultra intervals" that fire up human growth hormone (that's natural HGH, not the artificial stuff that anti-aging freaks pay $1000 a month to inject into their butts). The writer, Roy M. Wallack, who's name I vaguely recalled from a large article about the Pose Method that ran several years ago in Runner's World, starts with the premise that most running careers crumble by age 60 or so because of 2 things: 1. joint wear and injuries due to running, and 2. the body's natural muscular deterioration, which begins at 35. The whole book is basically dedicated to stopping these two things, hence an extensive section on "soft running" techniques (like the Pose method) and strategies for staying running-fit on less running and better technique (through cross-training, sprints, pool running, posture drills, and yoga), plus a large chapter on super-intense strength training, which, like the "ultra intervals" rapidly re-builds fast-twitch muscle fibers with HGH. Wallack, an impressive researcher and witty writer who often uses himself as a guinea pig (such as doing the Badwater Ultramarathon and the Boston Marathon on hardly any training), backs his "run to 100" plan with real-life examples of big-time people and world champions who are using these novel techniques and gear to great effect. He even gives you a fail-safe chapter called "Bionic Body Parts" which features a radical (to me, anyway) new hip resurfacing operation that is (miraculously, it seems) getting crippled marathoners back on the road and running as fast as ever. Bottom line: something's going on here. I bought those e3 hand grips, AQx water running shoes, and Vibram barefoot shoes that Wallack writes about, and think they work. I definitely feel stronger and faster. So.

Great Book, Bad Marketing Hook

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.

This Book Changes Everything

Having read, liked, and reviewed Run for Life's sibling, Bike for Life, four years ago, and being as much runner as cyclist (triathlete, actually), I feel compelled to review the new kid. My take: It's as good or better than the old one. Run for Life talks about a very serious subject--how to get fitter than ever and stay that way to age 100--in a very entertaining way. As a result, I raced through this 300+ page marathon of tips, clinics, interviews, magazine-style feature stories like it was a 5k. Its basic thesis is both radical and logical: Author Roy Wallack, a seriously fit 52-year-old with a wild streak of George Plimpton in him, says you can run into old age--but only if you DO NOT continue with your regular, steady-state, regimen of 65% VO2max endorphin-high running. That wears you out, causes injuries, and does nothing to fight the breakdown of your muscles, which starts around age 35-40, leaving you on the sidelines for good by 65 or 70. Sure, you can argue that steady-state running isn't the cause of our decline, but a fact' is a fact that most running careers are over by 65. So it's worth listening when Wallack argues that, to blow through the tape on your own two feet at age 100, you have make some changes; cut out most long runs and replace them with super hard, short intervals that build-up muscle with human growth hormone, stop all heel striking (a great "soft running" tutorial here), hit the weights with great intensity, crosstrain, stretch and do posture drills (good pictures here), and run a lot in the pool. And, to show you that he isn't just making this stuff all up, Wallack interviews world-class runners who are doing all these things themselves with great success. Would you believe that the Kenyan woman who set the world record for the half-marathon last year spends three hours a week running in the pool? That's one of many examples. Besides his "run less, run strong, run faster, run straight" plan, Run for Life has wonderful interviews with 10 Big Names of the sport, like Frank Shorter, Bill Rogers, and Rod Dixon, who all talk about their lives in running in very colorful ways, and offer great advice for staying fit as you age. An interview with a funny 84-year-old, 3-hour marathoner named John Cahill give me a couple giant belly laughs. An interview of Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the father of "Aerobics," is quite valuable, in that the 77-year Cooper distances himself from his "more is better" philosophy of the 1970's and appears to agree with the basics of Wallack's plan. The RFL plan seems radical, but only at first. After Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 (which are about Wallack's funny adventure at the Boston Marathon, where he learned about "soft" running, and then a tutorial explaining it ), I felt like Cooper: I had to agree. If you don't EVER want to hang up your running shoes--I'm 47, and I don't!--this plan seems like a very good place to start. Even if you don't care about living to 100, if you are a runner this is a