Getting your winter running mojo back!

Remember, the feeling you get from a good run is far better than the feeling you get from sitting around wishing you were running.

Sarah Condor

As the days get ever shorter and the weather gets wetter and colder, like me you’re probably struggling to motivate yourself to go for a run! If so, here’s a few benefits of running that will hopefully provide you with some motivation!

Gives You a Runner's High

One of the biggest benefits of running is its mood-boosting effects. When you run, your brain pumps out two powerful feel-good chemicals — endorphins and endocannabinoids. The latter sounds a bit like cannabis, right? That's for a reason. Chemically, the endocannabinoids your body produces during a run aren't all that different from marijuana's mood-altering chemical, THC. The most studied mid-run endocannabinoid, called anandamide, was actually discovered when scientists were trying to figure out how weed gets people high – who knew!?!!

Provides an Intense Leg Workout

You've probably caught on to this benefit of running when you found your legs to be aching the day after a run, but here's a little background on why. Your body's biggest muscles are all in your legs, and running is advantageous to all of them: your inner and outer thighs, gluteus maximus, quads, hamstrings, and calves, to name but a few. That makes hitting the pavement of the trails like a dozen leg workouts in one!

Works Your Core

The lower body isn't the only part of you that feels the benefits of running. The exercise works many of your core muscles, challenging not only your rectus abdominis, but also the deeper core muscles including your obliques, erector spinae, and transverse abdominis. Those deep muscles play important roles in stabilizing your spine by transferring power between your swinging arms and legs and sucking in your gut!

Improves Heart Health

For anyone that has run any great distance – and I’m talking anything like a mile and beyond, you’ll know, running is the king of cardio. Running even five to 10 minutes a day at a slow speed is associated with a drastically reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease, according to a landmark study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Regular runners have half the chance of dying from heart disease compared to those who never run. Put simply, physiologically, every time you run, you decrease your resting heart rate, so your heart doesn't need to work as hard keeping it healthy.

Doesn't Require a Hefty Time Commitment

Traveling for work? Don't belong to a gym? Have only 10 minutes to work out? Whatever your workout constraints, you can still get a run in. When I started the couch to 5k programme originally, I was out for no more than half an hour two or three times a week, I now run 5k sub half an hour – twenty five, thirty minutes two of three times a week, come on, don’t let the lack of time be your excuse, you’re only fooling yourself!

Might Improve Your Memory

Lace up and hit the road, because one of the surprising benefits of running is that it can directly affect your brain in the short and long term. A 2014 study at the University of British Columbia revealed that regular aerobic exercise — the kind that gets your heart rate up and makes you sweat, exercises like spinning or running — can boost the size of your hippocampus. And that's a good thing: The hippocampus is the area of the brain involved in verbal memory and learning.

A Little Goes a Long Way

You don't need to be a marathon runner to reap all the benefits of running. Running just 50 minutes per week — the equivalent of one six-mile run or two 5Ks — can protect the body from risk of stroke, arthritis, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and some cancers, according to a meta-analysis published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings .

Burns Calories Efficiently

Running requires a lot of fuel. In fact, the average 150-pound person will burn about 12.2 calories per minute running a 10-minute mile, says Hamilton. Not too shabby! And that's just on flat terrain — head outside where wind and hills up your effort, and you can expect to burn even more. Burning calories doesn't have to be a focus or goal of your run however, personally when I feel the need to lose a little weight, there is no finer activity to make it drop off!

Could Help You Live Longer

When taken together, all the health benefits of running could actually help you live longer. In fact, runners have a 25 to 40 percent reduced risk of premature mortality and live about three years longer than non-runners, according to a 2017 study published in Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases.

What's more, runners who also regularly took up other aerobic physical activities, such as cycling, swimming, walking, and racquet sports, had the greatest benefit. These runners had a 43 percent lower risk of death, according to the study. So, if you've been itching to skip your morning run and try an indoor cycling class, take this research as a reason to give it a go.

What’s on this week?