Joining a "Men's Challenge" obstacle course race last weekend was great fun. I haven’t had such a good excuse to play up to my armpits in mud since I was a kid. 

Being me, I was particularly curious about how this group of 50-year olds and I would compare in overall fitness - me being 20 years older. I found two key differences, and one encouraging lesson.

First off - disappointment !! The first obstacle to run over was all about balance. The leading few stepped their way across with ease. I fell off 3 times on my way over, and the followers made their way at various levels of competency

Arterial stiffness occurs as a consequence of biological aging and arteriosclerosis. What is often not well appreciated is that exercise can make a significant contribution to reducing arterial stiffness, and thus mitigating the adverse health consequences. 

How does that work?

​Exercising makes the heart work harder and this sends more frequent pulses of blood out into the arterial system. These "pulses" are not just pushed along by the force of the heart, as in a pump pushing water through a hose. The blood is pumped along by the muscles in the arteries contracting and squeezing like squeezing toothpaste.

This exercises the arterial and vascular muscles! The exercise reduces their "stiffness', just like other muscles. 

And in addition, as you exercise your heart it becomes stronger and able to pump out bigger pulses of blood with each stroke. That's why your resting heart rate drops as you get fitter. These bigger pulses make the arterial and vascular muscles work even harder to push the bigger pulses of blood along, and they get even less stiff.

I only started running at Xmas time 2018, so that's about 15 months ago. I'm probably not what runners call a runner. I run 5km twice a week to supplement my gym exercise program.

And although I've perused many articles online, I've never read a running book.

I'm a curious person. Running For Women popped up as a suggestion in my Thriftbooks app (because of the many other exercise and fitness books I've bought).

I thought to myself, why not learn more about running, and also from a woman's perspective to see what differences are important to know (and might give me extra knowledge to help others).

I'm glad that I did. It's a very practical book. I notice on Goodreads it only has 4-stars, but I gave it 5-stars.

Here's a summary of things I think it covered really well.