2007 Austin Danskin Triathlon

March 27, 2010 
Filed under Triathlon Videos


Video of the Danskin Triathlon held on June 10, 2007 in Austin, Tx. More than 3000 women participated in this sprint distance tri, many for the first time.

Marathon reporter goes the distance

March 22, 2010 
Filed under Running Videos


www.scmp.com Preparing for this year’s Hong Kong marathon was no easy task for reporter Anneliese O’Young. Early mornings, jogs in the snow, hiking with the Hash House Harriers, shoe shopping and consultations with sports therapists and pyschologists all worked her into shape. Training also cut into her drinking time. Check it out in this video diary. Sponsorship she collected went to the Hong Kong Cancer Fund and was in memory of Kevin Sinclair, the veteran SCMP reporter who died last year.

Raw Food Diet-Good For Your Health.

September 18, 2009 
Filed under Diet And Nutrition

Eating raw vegetables is safe and healthy. The most popular of all raw vegetables to eat are celery, carrots, broccoli, cucumbers, radishes, turnip and green leafy vegetables. Eating fiber or fat with carbohydrates will slow their digestion. Good fats are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Eating is one of the most important things in your life, it can dramatically influence your health, and your psychological behavior. It should be treated very carefully.

Eating superfoods enhances a raw food diet even further. Superfoods are the most potent, antioxidant rich, nutrient dense, disease fighting, anti aging, beautifying, mood enhancing, immune boosting foods on the planet. Eating nothing but fruits, vegetables, beans and nuts may not sound appealing to the average person, but those who follow this kind of diet don?t seem to be getting a raw deal nutritionally speaking.

The raw food diet has gained popularity in the past 10 years thanks to an increasing amount of information and positive responses, as well as celebrity endorsements. Eating a 100% raw diet is absolutely tough especially when money and time is a concern. For this reason, and because it’s easier to get all of the nutrition one needs from a less restrictive diet, some variation of raw and cooked food could be a nice “custom” raw food weight loss solution.

Eating a diet of raw food doesn`t have to be boring as is commonly believed. A simple raw food recipe might be just a salad or lettuce wraps, or even a homemade juice. Eating raw food aids in the decline of the risk of diabetes, digestive ailments and chronic and heart diseases.Eating raw veggies, seeds and nuts in general on the raw food diet are generally a good idea. All of these items are rich in iron as well.

Additionally, the raw food diet requires special care to include the recommended amounts of several important vitamins and nutrients, including Vitamin B-12, calcium, and protein. If adopted for an extended period of time without special attention to these nutrients, the diet can lead to nutritional deficiency and consequent illness. Add to that all the stress I’ve had this year, and it’s a recipe for sleeping your whole day away! I was reading that people who are stressed throughout the day fire off more of a certain synapse that causes you to REM sleep more.

Vegan and raw food diets have been credited with everything from weight loss to cancer prevention. Few scientific studies point conclusively to raw food diets, although evidence strongly suggests that eliminating meats and processed foods can decrease cancer risk. Vegans, who are the purists of the vegetarian world and who have one of the most specialized diets, refuse to eat all animal-derivative foods including butter, cheese, eggs and milk. Ovolacto vegetarians consider such animal-related foods acceptable but do not eat meat.Across the board, most vegetarians prefer their food organically grown and (if they eat fish and fowl) organically fed.

Eating raw foods also gives you more energy, a healthier looking skin, aids in weight loss and slows the process of aging.

Best Methods To Buy Right Slimming Pills Online

September 14, 2009 
Filed under Weight Loss Tips

The crowd of obese and overweight people is increasing. In the America , about America of their adults are overweight and nearly 1/3 are America . This is according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2001-2004. This problem does not only affect a person’s self confidence . It is also known as risk element for different health such as diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, gallbladder diseases, hypertension, osteoarthritis, breathing problems such as sleep apnea and some of the forms of cancer. Due to This , people are looking for means to lose weight effectively.

Weight Loss Pills Work Better With Good Diet and Regular Exercise

For people who want to lose weight fast, diet pills have been one of the constant answers. diet pills have given hope to those who want to get rid of excess fat and stay away from obesity. However, slimming pills are not miracle workers. For it to be work , one should have a great deal of commitment and discipline. It has to keep in mind that weight loss pills work closely with effective diet and regular exercise.

Consult Health Care Expert Before You Order Diet Pills

If you want to lose that excess fat by taking diet pills , make sure that you listen to a health care expert. Do not buy weight loss pills just because your friend says it is work . Keep in mind that the need of your body is unique. The pill that your friend is taking may have properties that are not suitable for you. A health care expert can help you choose the appropriate and most effective slimming pills for you. He can also advice you with the necessary diet and exercise that go well with the pills he prescribed.

Purchase Diet Supplements With Trusted Brand

It is also important that you purchase diet pills with reliable brands. Choose diet pills that are well researched and recommended by the experts. These slimming pills have been tested and proven to be safe and effective. Don’t order pill on an impulse. Don’t easily get excited by the new products that are coming out that claims to be effective. It is sad to note that there are a lot of fly by night slimming pills makers in the market today. The marketers of these pills are just taking advantage of people who wants to lose weight immediately.

Never use diet supplements that are not recommended for fat loss . There are a lot of cases right now wherein people take pills meant for other health problems. If you want to get rid of unwanted fat through pills, take the appropriate diet pills and not medications which are rumored to be effective. Don’t rely on hearsays. Prescription meant for other health problems may help you get rid of unwanted fat but the underlying side effects can be crucial. Again, get only the tested and proven brands.

In choosing for good weight loss oills , make sure that they are not only effective but safe as well. Keep in mind that whatever you take, the entire system in your body is affected. Trust only those that are clinically reliable diet pills will help you get rid of unwanted fat but you still have to live a healthy lifestyle to ensure that you keep the weight off.

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Low Carbohydrate Diets

August 27, 2009 
Filed under Uncategorized

In the first place, doing your own research on this subject is should be definitely done , but this report could save you some time. As source material for this article we used data published by respectful magazines and professional sites on the matter of our concern. Thus you can fully rely on what you read.

I would like to start by saying that diet advantages, as is true with any type of advantage, are always relative. An advantage in itself is not automatically good or bad. Never forget that a balanced approach to this subject would compare the effects on the body with the results obtained. So, let’s consider what price the body pays for the desired results and what exactly are low carbohydrate diet advantages.

To begin with, there are hundreds of books on this type of diet for those who want to take that route to controlling their weight. Many have done so and have experienced significant weight loss. Yet, while you may initially lose weight, the long term effects of low carb diets are still unknown. Rather than recommend them, some researchers are convinced that such diets, with their resulting high protein intake, might lead to some serious health problems including liver and kidney disorders, decrease of sugar in the blood and others.

However, many doctors and nutritonists continue to point out that diets rich in complex carbohydrates, fiber, fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans have consistently been shown, by a wide variety of studies, to play a key role in lasting weight control and longevity, while reducing the risk of cancer, gastrointestinal and cardiovascular disease. no doubt the best method for fat reduction and weight loss continues to be quite simple: burn more calories than you consume. It means (1) eating the proper foods – some weight loss plans even include a computerized meal planner that pre-selects the proper foods for you; (2) increasing your physical activity, such as adding aerobic exercise and you will lose weight. Any exercise that increases oxygen intake and heart beat rate for a sustained period of 20-30 minutes can be done quite safely without any harmful side effects.

One of the most obvious advantage of a low carb diet is the rapid weight loss. People who for one reason or another must lose weight quickly are often drawn to this type of diet. Others take a long range view to see if any such advantages bring some undesirable side effects with them. Indeed, effective alternative weight loss programs are available for those who may not yet be convinced to join the low carbohydrate crowd diet team.

To put it in simple words, it is ultimately you the dieter who must decide if the most popular advantage, namely, rapid weight loss, justifies any harmful side effects. If you decide that the risks are too high for you, then you will want to consider the available alternatives to any promised low carbohydrate diet advantages.

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Weight Loss And The Proper Nutrition.

August 26, 2009 
Filed under Diet And Nutrition

Approaching the matter of nutrition and weight loss, we have to emphasize the two basic issues that nutrition itself is a culture of eating proper food in a proper manner. Let’s start with the first, proper food.

All cells and tissues in our body are formed by the food we eat. And also food is the energy source for our body functions. So, this can explain why proper food is so important.

Food is one of our strongest motivators. And unfortunately, most of us consider food to be a source of pleasure only!

Our bodies are not fixed statues – they are always in process, which we call metabolism.

Perception, memory and all the intricate complexities of bodily functions are possible because of having or producing enzymes, hormones and a thousand other wonders – that are produced in the body from what we eat.

As a source of energy our body uses carbohydrates (sweets), fat and protein. To be more specific, carbohydrates are the source of immediate energy, proteins are the body building blocks, and fats are the high-energy storage. But these roles sometimes overlap.

And faulty nutrition is the usual cause of illness!

At the same time, with correct choices we can prevent many food-related diseases such as heart attack (!), stroke, essential hypertension, diabetes and – even cancer!

More than a century ago, Ellen G. White, in “Counsels on Diet and Foods”, shared her observation: “At mealtime cast off care and anxious thought. Do not feel hurried, but eat slowly and with cheerfulness, with your heart filled with gratitude to God for all His blessings”. Isn’t it wonderful?

Just let me share with you part of our experience with nutrition and weight loss. If you haven’t had any previous experience of following the simple principles I suggested when discussing how to reduce the amount of daily food, you might find them difficult to follow, but this is just on the face of it.

In reality it is much easier than it seems! And I promise, I’ll teach you how to master it. Because this issue of how to practice eating habits is essentially an important one!

The same food or eating process itself can bring you joy and fullness of life, or, on the other hand, if taken wrongly, can cause considerable damage to your health and even shorten your life!

How does overeating or eating the wrong food cause harm? The answer is: whatever food that our organism is not able to digest normally, becomes poisonous to us. Thus any poison will shorten our life!

This is the reason, why I suggest that my clients practice this: before starting to eat, gently close your eyes for a few moments, forget all your problems for a while and give yourself a smile! And then you can start eating.

Another recommendation is this: when eating, try to keep your eyes gently closed (or just turn your eyes away from the served food), while slowly chewing a small portion of food in your mouth.

Believe me, this process will bring you much more flavor, and benefits at the same time. Because just by doing this small thing you will lessen the portion of consumed meal by three to five times!!! (As I have already mentioned)

I would emphasize the importance of taking time to eat. When eating, if possible, make it a social occasion to communicate with your family or with your friends. But! (Always, there are some “buts”). If you decide to improve your eating habits, see if the company would be appropriate at this time, especially at the beginning. For this reason, it is better at first to have all the changes stabilized, so that you can resist any temptations…

But even when in difficult situations, we should never compromise basic principles of good nutrition. Always watch what you eat or drink!!! A well mannered person will know how to do this without compromising friendly relationships.

As we do this, we will have the added benefits of alertness, clear thinking, and a perception that is fully aware of life’s joyful events. But real joy comes from facing reality and patiently dealing with whatever life has to offer. If we take time to learn what is good for us and make a serious effort to put it into practice, we can expect to be rewarded with extra energy and a longer and happier life!

Let’s take a look at sweets. Which are conglomerates of simple sugars, most important of which is glucose. This simple sugar is the supplier of the most bodily energy. Penetrating into the blood stream it meets the constant need of all the cells. Due to insulin, glucose is able to pass through the cell membrane and become available for use.

At the same time, our bodies are capable of properly handling only a limited amount of simple sugars in a given period of time. When exceeded (if we eat too many sweets), the pancreas is forced to work overtime producing insulin for converting excess sugar into fat.

Small amounts of sugar will not do this, but we must remember that there is hidden sugar in most processed food and drinks. And this is the problem – we usually eat far more sweets than our pancreas can cope with!

Let’s see how we can avoid this problem. When we plan our diet we should give preference to the natural source of sweets, like fruits, then wheat, rice, potatoes, beans, and other starch-containing foods. Because these vegetable foods require quite a long period of time for to be digested, and simple sugar is released gradually. This allows our body to process this energy in an orderly fashion.

Latest scientific researches have revealed that: consuming excessive sugar (too many sweets) can lead to such problems as:

* Constipation.
* Causing dental caries by providing an ideal culture medium in the mouth, and by slowing down the internal fluid circulation in the teeth.
* Depression of the immune system, by interfering with the germ-killing capacity of white blood cells.
* Promotion of adult-onset diabetes.

Now we come to the practical application of the above for the weight loss. With the exception of some fruits the ideal diet will include only a minimal amount of sugar, and provide an abundance of complex carbohydrates such as those found in vegetables and whole-grain pasta.

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Sweet Fit LLC Proudly Introduces Genesis Today’s Goji 100 At SweetFitHealth.com

August 26, 2009 
Filed under Diet And Nutrition

Sweet Fit LLC proudly intoduces Genesis Today super juices and supplements at SweetFitHealth.com. There, you can listen to 12 free lessons on vital health by Dr. Lindsey. If you are looking for a premium product that is 100% pure than you found a market leader here for superfruit juices like Goji berry, Acai, Noni and Mangosteen. Genesis Today was founded by Dr. Linsday Duncan, and was started in the nutritional detox and digestive cleanse category of which he expanded into the superfruit juices and has become a sought after product by many health consious consumers.

Sweet Fit Health.com is offering a special discount on the Super Power Pack 8 which includes Genesis Today’s
1-GOJI 100 -32oz., 1-NONI 100 -32oz., 1-MANGOSTEEN 100 -32oz., 1-ACAI 100 -32oz.,1-4TOTAL NUTRITION – 32oz.,
1-4TOTAL CLEANSE Part 1 & 2 – 120caps., 1-4FIBER – 9.8 oz. jar, & 1-4DIGESTION – 60

Genesis Today’s juices are 100% pure wildcrafted as they contain no filler juices, and they’re packaged in glass bottles, which eliminates any concern about bisphenol-A contamination from the plastic.

The prices by Sweet Fit Health are also quite very good, especially considering how much people are paying for some of these same superfruit juices through various network marketing companies and getting diluted products with sugar.

For example, with Genesis Today’s Goji 100, Acai 100, Noni 100, and Mangosteen 100 you get 30,000 mg. per serving of each product in each bottle! 30,000 mg x 32 = 960,000 mg in a 32 oz. bottle! This speaks for itself and will save you much time and money from buying those cheap imitation juices and dried diluted capsules with much less per serving!

In my opinion, Sweet Fit Health is passing along the value to the consumer as Genesis Today products are a far better value in quality and price. For example, their Goji 100 product is 100% pure Goji juice, with absolutely nothing added.

You can get a 32 oz. bottle of it at Sweet Fit Health for as low as $24.99 each (http://sweetfithealth.com/about.html) which comes out to under .79 cents per ounce of pure mangosteen juice. That’s tenth the price you’d pay for the same amount of actual mangosteen juice from some of those well known network marketing companies, whose products consist mostly of cheap filler type juices.

My favorite product from Genesis Today is hands down their Power4 blend which combines Goji, Acai, Noni and Mangosteen juice. A 32 oz. bottle is currently as low as $31.09 at SweetFit Health.com. (http://sweetfithealth.com/about.html) Drink an ounce a day of it and you’ll receive an abundance of anti-cancer, health-enhancing phytonutrients that you quite simply can’t get anywhere else by far for that price and value.

Every health oriented person agrees that drinking a daily dose of Noni 100 superfruit juice is a great contribution in your overall health. These special juices contain phytochemicals that help prevent every imaginable major disease you can think of (cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, kidney stones, depression, etc.), and they may even help improve your skin quality, hair quality, vision, mood and much more. You can enjoy these juices every day by blending them into superfood smoothies or drinking them straight up!

Sweet Fit Health.com also has important healing notes by Dr. Lindsey Duncan as well as a comprehensive recipe and encyclopedia guide to healing with the Healing Gourmet, Kelley Herring! Check it out today. Cheers to your health!

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Keep in mind that these products and others are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

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The Great News About Addictive Foods And Their Harmful Consequences – Informative Article.

August 19, 2009 
Filed under Diet And Nutrition

Most of us are fond of at least one product that has the effect of a stimulant and that eventually becomes an addiction. These products include exercise stimulant drinks (they come in cans and look like cola), fizzy aerated drinks, tobacco, betel nut, betel leaf, strong coffee, strong tea, mahuang (an ephedrine-like compound consumed in china), and alcohol.

Before I tell you why we shouldn’t consume these products, I’d like to deal with the question of why we do consume them in the first place.

There’s no one who doesn’t know that products like these, consumed in excess, can severely harm our bodies. Yet, we still find them hard to resist. The need to eat stimulant food is a simple human weakness that has existed for ages: humans (and many animals) have always indulged in foods that give a sort of emotional high. In clinical terms, this means rapid heart beat, a little sweating, dilation or constriction of the pupils of the eye, a warm flush on the face, and a sense of greater sensitivity, concentration and perception.

These sensations of ‘high’ die down within a few hours, and we are left feeling listless and low. This leads to a craving for that food again, to experience the high one more time. And there we are going round and round in a vicious circle.

The physiology of addictions is as follows:

When you eat an addictive food, it stimulates the hormone like substances found at the end of your nerves, which triggers an avalanche of similar stimulatory substances and you experiences a high. As the substances near the nerves are depleted, you get into the low phase, which leads you to crave that food again. This yo-yo phase of nerve stimulation and depletion leads to a pattern of addiction.

Consuming addictive foods is one of the oldest unhealthy food practices and, despite a revolution in health consciousness; it shows no signs of dying out.

Below are some side effects of certain addictive foods.

Alcohol Addiction: Erosion of stomach and intestinal lining, liver damage, nutritional deficiency.

Tobacco: Erosion of gum and tongue can lead to cancer of the buccal mucosa.

Betel nut: Leads to the discoloration of teeth, erosion of the lining of the mouth, and cancer of the mouth and upper tract. It also leads to heart problems among people who already have a weak heart.

Ma huang: It contains ephedrine and leads to heart problems.

Aerated drinks: High doses of caffeine.

Caffeine and xanthine: Found in tea, coffee. These become harmful only in very high doses; don’t consume more than five cups a day.

Mixed drug reactions: People who consume medications for the heart, hypertension and asthma have to be very careful about the interactions of the drugs with stimulant foods, as mixing the two can be fatal. After years of experience, all doctors know how difficult it is to break the food addictions of their patients. So like them, I can only advise a good compromise. If you can’t break the addiction, then at least you should practice moderation. Read more other articles about calcium health and summa health.

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The Important Issue Of How Nutrition Is Linked With Cancer Prevention .

August 19, 2009 
Filed under Diet And Nutrition

For many years it was assumed that what you ate each day had little or nothing to do with helping in the prevention of many of our deadliest cancers. However, recent research has proven that nutrition does indeed play a major role in the prevention and treatment of many types of cancer.

There are certain vitamins and minerals that are believed to enhance and spread malignancies through the bodies system, and this is needed to help prevent cancer. There are also vitamins and minerals that help to prevent the growth of tumors.

The National Cancer Institute has reported that one third of all cancer is diet related. They have also gone on to say that making changes in the diet can help to prevent most of the cancer that is related to nutrition.

Research has shown that diets that include fruits and vegetables eaten on a daily bases, according to the recommended daily allowance, give a reduced risk of the majority of the deadliest cancers. For a diet to provide a reduced risk, certain vitamins and minerals must be included. This means that foods that are rich in bioflavonoids, fiber, and vitamins A, C, and E must be consumed regularly. These all seem to help to slow, stop, and even reverse the process that leads to cancer.

Now, everyone knows that cigarette smoking is one of the leading causes of cancer, particularly cancer of the lungs. But many of the cancers caused by smoking are related to a severe lack of vitamin C. Cigarette smoking depletes vitamin C in the body very quickly. It is highly recommended that smokers follow a diet with more fruits and vegetables that contain high amounts of vitamin C to replenish the bodies depleted supply.

Most cancer patients are referred to a registered dietitian to help promote a diet that will help aid in the bodies healing and recovery process. In the final stages of cancer, most patients do not feel like eating. In the past, many of these patients were force fed. However, recent research has shown that when a patient does not feel like eating, it is the body’s way of trying to starve the cancer.

During the time that the body is trying to starve the cancer, doctors will go into action and bombard the cancer with treatments. When the cancer is destroyed, the patient’s appetite will return back to normal and the body’s recovery can take place.

While we have learned how certain nutrients included in the diet can help prevent, slow down and even reverse many forms of cancer, there are numerous forms of cancer most of which are very deadly and many people do not survive the ordeal.

If you are ever one of the unfortunate ones that acquire one of these deadly cancers, or someone you know does, always remember that proper nutrition will help through the process. Aside from your doctor and specialist, it will pay you ten fold to seek out the aid of a qualified registered dietitian who can put together a nutrition plan for you that will help you fight the cancer every step of the way. Your doctor may even refer you to a dietitian as part of your treatment. 

 


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Runners who don’t train well can have marathon of miseries

August 10, 2009 
Filed under Running

crashed Runners who dont train well can have marathon of miseries

Today, as an estimated 20,000 runners begin their mad dash from Hopkinton to Boston, Dr. Malissa Wood, a cardiologist, four-time marathoner, and codirector of the Massachusetts General Hospital Women's Cardiovascular Health Center, will be setting up shop in the corner of the medical tent at the finish line.

As soon as they're finished, about 25 amateur runners will stroll or hobble over to Wood's corner to let her take a sample of their blood. They will also get a noninvasive test to see how well their hearts are working after the stress of running for about four hours. And, as they have done every year since 2003, Wood and her Mass. General colleagues will compare these postrace test results to the prerace exams done two weeks earlier.

The Mass. General findings on Boston marathoners — three published papers to date and two pending — are sobering and lend support to the idea that while moderate exercise is perhaps the most important thing a person can do for health, taking it to extremes, like a marathon, may be dangerous.

Among marathon runners, the biggest cardiac risk seems to arise in people who train the least. People who worked up to a marathon by running at least 45 miles a week for at least three to four months ''were golden. They didn't get into any trouble at all," said Wood. ''If they trained less than 35 miles a week, they were in big trouble."

Translated for the rest of us, this means that for people who are not in peak shape ''sudden, strenuous activity can trigger a heart attack," said Dr. Arthur Siegel, a 20-time marathoner and director of internal medicine at Harvard's McLean Hospital in Belmont.

Roughly 450,000 Americans run in marathons every year. And 325,000 do triathlons, which involves swimming, biking, and running, according to USA Triathlon, the sport's organizing body. Many of these are not well-trained athletes but newcomers who race to raise money for charities. That means, said Siegel, that in many such events, participants ''are getting older and slower. That's where the cardiac risk comes in, especially for middle-aged men with previously silent heart disease."

Moderation is the key, said Dr. Harvey Simon, an avid runner, former marathoner, Mass. General internist, and author of ''The No Sweat Exercise Plan," which advocates very moderate exercise — even as moderate as gardening and housework — instead of extreme exertion like marathoning.

''The greatest hazard of exercise is not doing it," said Simon.

''I used to preach 'No pain, no gain,' but now I say, ''No pain, big gain,' " he said. The whole ''aerobics doctrine" that a person needs a lot of strenuous exercise ''inspired the few but discouraged the many," he said. Even walking at the extremely leisurely pace of half an hour per mile has benefits.

Study after study has shown that moderate, regular exercise can indeed reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, hip fracture, and some kinds of cancer.

But exercising moderately takes patience and persistence. If you have not been exercising regularly, you should work up over several weeks to walking 45 minutes a day at least five days a week, said exercise physiologist Kerry Stewart at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

At first you may have to stop every few minutes and rest, he said. That's fine — just start up again. If you get chest pains or severe shortness of breath, of course, stop and call your doctor. If you have heart disease or have had a heart attack, check with your doctor before starting or substantially increasing your workouts.

You shouldn't underdo exercise, but you shouldn't overdo it, either. Chronic fatigue, trouble sleeping, muscle tiredness, nagging congestion or sore throat, persistent aches and pains, and depression are common signs that you may be working out too hard, said Siegel. To avoid this, try not to increase your exercise duration or intensity by more than 10 percent over any two-week period.

The easiest way to gauge whether you're working hard enough is to use the ''sing/talk test": Work hard enough that you can't sing but can talk.

Experienced athletes ''know how delicate the balance is between training to obtain optimal performance and overtraining to the point where muscle function begins to deteriorate," said Dr. Christopher Cooper, an exercise physiologist at UCLA. But for amateurs, finding that balance point can be hard.

As for marathoners, Wood and her Mass. General colleagues have found that running 26.2 miles can lead to clear signs of cardiac stress. They have found that cardiac troponin, a chemical that shows up in blood tests only when heart muscle is damaged, rises in 60 percent of runners, and in some, it rises so high that ''if you had just looked at these scores, these people would have been admitted to the hospital for heart attacks," Wood said.

They've found that another chemical, BNP, or brain natriuretic peptide, another red flag for cardiac dysfunction, goes up after a marathon in 60 percent of runners. Platelets also become activated and more likely to form the clots that can trigger heart attacks, according to a just-published paper by Siegel and Alexander Kratz, director of the hematology lab at Mass. General. And, as shown on echocardiograms, the heart's ability to relax after each beat remains impaired for at least several weeks in most marathoners.

Bottom line? You don't have to run a marathon to get into good shape. Just put on comfortable shoes, get out, and walk. Moderately. And consistently.

ID027 running training Runners who dont train well can have marathon of miseries

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