Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Is It Better to Walk or Run?

May 29, 2013, 12:01 am



Walking and running are the most popular physical activities for American adults. But whether one is preferable to the other in terms of improving health has long been debated. Now a variety of new studies that pitted running directly against walking are providing some answers.

Their conclusion? It depends almost completely on what you are hoping to accomplish.
If, for instance, you are looking to control your weight — and shallowly or not, I am — running wins, going away. In a study published last month in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, and unambiguously titled “Greater Weight Loss From Running than Walking,” researchers combed survey data from 15,237 walkers and 32,215 runners enrolled in the National Runners and Walkers Health Study — a large survey being conducted at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.


Participants were asked about their weight, waist circumference, diets and typical weekly walking or running mileage both when they joined the study, and then again up to six years later.
The runners almost uniformly were thinner than the walkers when each joined the study. And they stayed that way throughout. Over the years, the runners maintained their body mass and waistlines far better than the walkers.


The difference was particularly notable among participants over 55. Runners in this age group were not running a lot and generally were barely expending more calories per week during exercise than older walkers. But their body mass indexes and waist circumferences remained significantly lower than those of age-matched walkers.


Why running should better aid weight management than walking is not altogether clear. It might seem obvious that running, being more strenuous then walking, burns more calories per hour. And that’s true. But in the Berkeley study and others, when energy expenditure was approximately matched — when walkers head out for hours of rambling and burn the same number of calories over the course of a week as runners — the runners seem able to control their weight better over the long term.


One reason may be running’s effect on appetite, as another intriguing, if small, study suggests. In the study, published last year in the Journal of Obesity, nine experienced female runners and 10 committed female walkers reported to the exercise physiology lab at the University of Wyoming on two separate occasions. On one day, the groups ran or walked on a treadmill for an hour. On the second day, they all rested for an hour. Throughout each session, researchers monitored their total energy expenditure. They also drew blood from their volunteers to check for levels of certain hormones related to appetite.


After both sessions, the volunteers were set free in a room with a laden buffet and told to eat at will.


The walkers turned out to be hungry, consuming about 50 calories more than they had burned during their hourlong treadmill stroll.


The runners, on the other hand, picked at their food, taking in almost 200 calories less than they had burned while running.


The runners also proved after exercise to have significantly higher blood levels of a hormone called peptide YY, which has been shown to suppress appetite. The walkers did not have increased peptide YY levels; their appetites remained hearty.
So to eat less, run first.


But on other measures of health, new science shows that walking can be at least as valuable as running — and in some instances, more so. A study published this month that again plumbed data from the Runners and Walkers Health Study found that both runners and walkers had equally diminished risks of developing age-related cataracts compared to sedentary people, an unexpected but excellent benefit of exercise.


And in perhaps the most comforting of the new studies, published last month in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology and again using numbers from the versatile Runners and Walkers Health Study, runners had far less risk of high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol profiles, diabetes and heart disease than their sedentary peers. But the walkers were doing even better. Runners, for instance, reduced their risk of heart disease by about 4.5 percent if they ran an hour a day. Walkers who expended the same amount of energy per day reduced their risk of heart disease by more than 9 percent.


Of course, few walkers match the energy expenditure of runners. “It’s fair to say that, if you plan to expend the same energy walking as running, you have to walk about one and a half times as far and that it takes about twice as long,” said Paul T. Williams, a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and the lead author of all of the studies involving the surveys of runners and walkers.


On the other hand, people who begin walking are often more unhealthy than those who start running, and so their health benefits from the exercise can be commensurately greater.
“It bears repeating that either walking or running is healthier than not doing either,” Dr. Williams said, whatever your health goals.


For confirmation, consider one additional aspect of the appetite study. The volunteers in that experiment had sat quietly for an hour during one session, not exercising in any fashion, neither running nor walking. And afterward they were famished, consuming about 300 calories more than the meager few they had just burned.

Source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/is-it-better-to-walk-or-run/?partner=MYWAY&ei=5065

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

The Roving Runner: The New York Botanical Garden

May 7, 2013, 4:00 pm

The Roving Runner: The New York Botanical Garden

These are glorious days to run in New York City.
The weather has been in that elusive sweet spot, with temperatures we were pining for a couple of months ago and will again a couple from now.



Everyone has a favorite route: a jog around Central Park or along the rivers, through Madison Square Park and down brownstone blocks, the senses serenaded by blooming trees and planted tulips. It’s hard to go wrong this time of year. But my nomination for the most scenic and tranquil run in the city goes to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx.


In addition to being one of the nation’s premier gardens and research centers, this one offers early morning access to exercisers hours before it opens. So not only can you jog there between 6 and 10 a.m., you can have a private audience with the daffodils.


First I bought a community grounds pass for $25, good for a year. It offers access to the grounds but not to exhibits. Basic members can add this access for a small fee, and it’s free at higher membership levels. You’ll want to take care of this before going there to run — call (718) 817-8703 — because the ticket people won’t be there yet.


The Metro-North train to the Botanical Garden stop takes about 20 minutes from Grand Central Terminal, but since I try to squeeze the juice out of my unlimited MetroCard, I rode the No. 2 train to Allerton Avenue. That took me about an hour from 14th Street in Manhattan, but much of the ride in the Bronx is elevated and outdoors, with stops that feature stained-glass murals and bucolic-sounding names like West Farms Square.


From Allerton Avenue, the treetops are visible in Bronx Park, home to both the garden and the Bronx Zoo. I ran in that direction, staying on Allerton as it changed names but wrapped directly around to the garden’s Mosholu Gate entrance. It was an easy one-mile warmup, but the B, D and No. 4 trains offer even shorter routes to the garden.


I showed my pass at the security gate and was on my way. With the garden’s stately headquarters to the left and conservatory to the right, I ran down a tree-covered path called Garden Way. It was here that I saw the first of several large sculptures by the Spanish artist Manolo Valdés. These large works in aluminum and steel feature a female head at the base with various headdresses that blend splendidly with the garden surroundings.

I continued jogging, passing a lawn sprinkled with white and yellow flowers set among the bursting cherry blossoms, and said to myself, “This is going to be good.”



My notional plan, to run the perimeter of the garden first, fell apart quickly as I was tempted by a winding, hilly path that cut back to the right. But here it doesn’t matter which path you choose. Getting lost among these 250 acres is part of the joy, and you are in secure boundaries, never too far from an exit.


Passing the entrance to the rock garden (no grounds pass access) I next encountered the garden’s newest addition: the Native Plant Garden, which opened on May 4.


A bit farther along, with the Azalea Garden to the right and the Thain Family Forest to the left, I chose the azaleas first. I spent several minutes running the curvy, hilly woodland paths — there is almost a mile’s worth in this area alone. My jaw dropped at the exploding pinks and purples of the rhododendrons and azaleas.


Next I entered the forest. This is the real deal, what the garden’s Web site calls “the largest remaining tract of original forest that once covered most of New York City.” The Bronx River, the city’s only freshwater river, cuts through it. Paths line the river’s banks, and the Hester Bridge links the two sides, offering a view of the Bronx River Waterfall’s mellow cascade.
The surfaces in the forest are a runner’s dream, pillowy soft with wood chips but stable enough to allow you to look up and soak in the sea of green.


The sounds in the forest erase the stress of the city. I could hear singing birds and the gentle rush of the river. In certain spots the whoosh of traffic on the Bronx River Parkway was audible, but even that was more like white noise than the incessant honking of Midtown.
After crossing the river I passed the Stone Mill, a landmark 1840 structure that was once a tobacco processing house and is now an event space.


Exiting the forest, I returned to the garden paths, looping around the rose garden and then jogging through the conifers and the wetland path and the herb garden and … well, you get the picture.


Road races are social and energizing, but this run offers something different: a thought-provoking solitude that is not easy to obtain in the city.


After running about four miles of paths, I found my way back to where I entered. This is an ideal starting point for other Bronx runs. The Mosholu Parkway has a greenway that leads all the way to Van Cortlandt Park, the heart of cross-country running in New York City. On the way back to Allerton Avenue, there are chances to hop onto the Bronx River Greenway, where the eventual goal is to have a contiguous path from the East River all the way up to the Kensico Dam in Westchester County. So much exploring to do and so little time.


Near the garden’s exit I made a brief stop, and a friendly security officer named Mary Gill pulled up to see if I needed any help. She was a retired New York Police Department sergeant who spoke fondly about working at the garden.


“You really learn to take it down,” she said, signaling with her hand a lowering of intensity from her previous career.


Take it down. That’s exactly what you do at this magical place.

Source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/the-roving-runner-the-new-york-botanical-garden/?partner=MYWAY&ei=5065