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Run for your Life! A longer one, that is.

Want a long, healthy life? Put on your trainers and go for a run.
The benefits of physical activity and running are nothing new- lower your risk for heart disease and cancer,  aid with anxiety, depression and mental health maintenance, provides a social outlet, to name a few.  But new research published in Progress in Cardiovascular Disease this spring has been able to help quantify some of those benefits for running, and they are compelling.
So for those of you looking for some motivation to get up and go for that next run, here are some highlights:

  • Runners tend to live about three years longer than those who don’t –even if they run slowly or sporadically and smoke, drink or are overweight.
  • Running drops a person’s risk of premature death by 25 to 40%. No other form of exercise that researchers looked at showed comparable impacts on life span.
  • You don’t have to run loads to reap benefits. Improvements in life expectancy reach their peak at about four hours of running per week.
  • Hour for hour, running statistically returns more time to people’s lives than it consumes. Assuming two hours per week of training, a typical runner would spend less than six months actually running over the course of almost 40 years, but could expect an increase in life expectancy of 3.2 years, for a net gain of about 2.8 years.
  • In concrete terms, an hour of running statistically lengthens life expectancy by seven hours.

Running is a simple and efficient way to be active. All you need is a pair of shoes. No fancy equipment or membership fees. This is one of the reasons why Jubilee Hall Trust aims to support people to take up running by providing training and support for new runners through our Run for your Life programme and charity event.
Running is free, easy (believe it or not!), fun (I promise!), and now that you know it can add years to your life, what are you waiting for?  Eventbrite - Run for your Life! 10k/5k/2k Charity Run Series | Hampstead Heath
We hope you’ll join us join us this September to Run for your Life. And in the meantime, check out your closest Parkrun, GoodGym, or find a Jogging Buddy to get started!