Running for Your Life: Question Period

OK, enough about me. (Is that even allowed in a personal blog?!) I know I have some readers, or at least a browser or two – Yes! Bounce Rate – so let’s kick it back to you.

My friend, Jacki, wants to know how to do it. Not just run for her life; she has been doing that, in three-mile bursts four or five times a week for a long time, but she has never run a marathon and is intrigued by the idea of doing so. However a friend and exercise expert tells her to fuhgeddaboudit; try swimming, or cycling or low-impact aerobics (shoot me now), not running; running destroys the joints, it’s an exercise-killer not an exercise-accelerant.

I could – and have done in this blog – cited my experts: the "Born to Run" camp who in my view rightly say that done the right way, as in "sitting" in a mechanically sound pace that fits your body type, you can run, not