HONING YOUR MIND

YES, YOU CAN WORK YOUR HEART and raise Vo2max on the bike or in the pool, but what makes running so special, according to scientists, lies within your head. As University of North Carolina researchers put it , runners l i tera l ly have a ‘ younger - appea r i ng bra i n’. In 2016, researchers at the University of Arizona also found that running can change the brain in many of the same ways as activities requiring fine motor skills, such as racquet sports or playing an instrument. This was surprising, say lead resea rcher s Ra ichlen and Dr Gene Alexander, because conventional logic says that running isn’t mentally taxing – put one foot in front of the other, try not to trip. ‘ Running is actually a pretty cognitively demanding sport,’ says Raichlen. ‘ You just don’t realise it.’ The tree root in the middle of the trail, the traffic light that’s about to turn red, that dog bounding towards you – these are all cha l lenge s you ha ve to navigate on a second-by-second basis.

Look back again to our forebears, and you find the evolutionary explanation. ‘As hunter- gatherers, we moved quickly around the landscape, but we’d also have to remember where we were going, use spatial navigation and executive functions like planning and decisionmaking,’ Raichlen explains. ‘ We think those cognitive skills got linked to exercise through evolutionary processes.’