Only run short distances? You are in good company and reap many benefits in operation

“Ongoing work in the field continues to show that regular exercise at all levels is beneficial in many ways,” Calum MacRae, MD, cardiologist, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and principal investigator of the Apple Heart and Movement Study at Brigham. and the Women’s Hospital, he says. “Jogging, running or walking for even 20 minutes each day has been shown to affect health and well-being in all age groups.”

The ongoing Apple Heart and Movement Study looks at the physical activity and heart health of hundreds of thousands of participants who wear an Apple Watch and are enrolled in specific studies. Recent findings highlight average amounts and types of exercise among more than 250,000 participants, and researchers have discovered how common it is for people to run certain distances.

Among people who log runs on their Apple Watch, 50% run at least 5 kilometers (or 3.1 miles). The other side of this: The longer the races of the other 50 percent are less than 5 kilometers. This means that about half of the study participants are running “short” distances, like me.

That’s not a problem for Timothy Miller, MD, an orthopedic sports medicine surgeon at Ohio State University who works with college athletes, including runners. From heart health to stress management to lung capacity and more, Dr. Miller says that running is one of the best things a person can do for their physical and mental health, and that “anyone [amount of] running will be beneficial as long as you do it correctly.” This means maintaining proper running form and gradually increasing times and distances.

“The person who runs the most miles per week is not [necessarily] the most successful.” —Jay Dicharry

“Our whole society is so obsessed with volume,” Jay Dicharry, physical therapist, running coach and author of the recent book. Running wired, he says “It’s very unfortunate because the person who runs the most miles per week is not [necessarily] the most successful.”

The benefits of short runs

In fact, running short distances has its own benefits. Here, Dicharry and Dr. Miller explain why short runs are valuable in their own right.

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You could actually get out and run

A shorter run is simply more accessible to more people than a longer run, so it’s possible for people to run in the first place.

“A lot of people don’t have an hour to an hour and a half to get out there, spend time out there, including stretching and warming up and everything,” says Dr. Miller. “But running 20, maybe 25 minutes for a 3 to 3.5 or 3.1 is a much less daunting task for a novice runner. They can fit it into their schedule more easily, and in that situation, it means they can probably do it more often, which means they can continue to do those things and maintain that fitness.”

You’ll have more time for cross-training

If you run shorter distances a few times a week, you probably have time to mix in other forms of fitness as well. This includes running at different speeds and intensities, such as short interval runs. Dicharry says that running at different efforts, from an easy pace to a challenging tempo run to a sprint, helps train your body to use energy efficiently and become a better runner fast As long as you focus on working at that different pace.

“If you focus on the quality of your effort, I think you’ll find that things really start to change,” says Dicharry. “Just focusing on volume is not the solution.”

In addition, both Dicharry and Dr. Miller recommends combining shorter runs with strength training to avoid injury.

“It’s about being well-rounded,” says Dicharry. “Running is a great sport for your heart and lungs. It builds very good physiological fitness, but running is not enough training to build muscle strength, to build strong bones, and to build healthy tendons.”

You can avoid overuse injuries

Miller says that shorter runs can even help prevent injury compared to longer runs.

“The longer you run, the more cardiovascular fitness you increase, but at the same time, you can start to get soreness and tendinitis and other kinds of problems that come from long-distance running,” says Dr. Miller. “If you’re running at a threshold of less than 3.1 miles at a time, we know that’s a very reasonable threshold to not develop these overuse injuries to the bones or tendons, which would cause other long-term problems.”

You can give your brain some TLC

So you get the mental benefits of running, incl mitigation of stress, anxiety and depression¹—without so much toll on your body.

“You’ll also get the same mental health benefit without necessarily being more tired or feeling overworked than some longer distance runners might feel,” says Dr. Miller.

The moral of the story? Get out there and start logging those miles, at your own pace.