Jordan Wirfs-Brock's Library tagged running →  View Popular

At The Frontal Cortex Jonah Lehrer has a post on marathon running and memory. Stress, like the stress from running for 4 hours, is known to disrupt memory -- but all memory isn't disrupted equally. The study found that after a marathon, runners had reduced "explicit" memory (ability to remember specific words, facts, numbers, etc.) but improved "implicit" memory (the ability to remember actions, motions, processes, etc.).

Fascinating! As someone who has run -- oh, is it 5? -- marathons I definitely felt a deterioration in my cognitive abilities as the races progressed. My ability to do simple math (like calculating mile splits) withered away. But it wasn't because I couldn't add anymore -- I could do that just fine. It was always because I couldn't remember what my watch said one mile earlier. That's a distinctly "explicit" memory function.

scienceblogs.com/...marathons_and_memory.php - Preview

memory cognition marathon running stress jonah lehrer

Read this (awesome and very my-life-appropriate) article last week about how humans evolved as runners. Forgot to bookmark it until now! Totally essentially for any runner/science geek.

seedmagazine.com/...the_running_man_revisited - Preview

SEED running human evolution evolutionary biology

Most humbling yet at the same time reassuring passage:

"In part, Carpenter has owed his prowess to his physiology. His resting heart rate has been measured at 33 beats a minute, lower than those of Michael Phelps and many astronauts. In a test at the United States Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, Carpenter’s VO2 max, a gauge of the body’s ability to process oxygen, registered at 90.2, perhaps a record high for a runner. (Only Bjorn Daehlie, a Norwegian cross-country skier, has scored higher. Lance Armstrong recorded an 81.)"

www.nytimes.com/...24runner.html - Preview

nytimes matt carpenter running endurance distance running altitude marathon