What Is Slow Running? 5 Benefits Of This Exercise

Evans did not care. He started running — regularly, poorly, slowly. "I wasn't trying to 'slow run,'" he says now. "I was just running, and I was slow, so I decided to celebrate that and get the health benefits rather than feel like it was some moral failure. I was more passionate about being active than getting faster or skinnier."

The impulse to do more, to constantly push for better times and lower BMIs, permeates the running world, where coaches, training apps, magazines and online groups all emphasize performance and weight loss. "There's an elitism to running, where people are always posting their times with the sense that if I have a better time than you, I'm somehow superior," he adds.

Many clubs and races have a cutoff of roughly 10 minutes per mile. "If you are slower than that, they have no place for you. There was no one I could run with," Evans says. "When I got in races, the water stations and finish line were usually closed before I got done. I thought, 'I can't be the only one.'"

Then the pandemic hit. Many races were canceled, and Evans started organizing virtual races through the club. That's when things got wild. "Seems like everyone suddenly got into running, especially people who hadn't been runners, and we were getting a lot of people reaching out," he says. "They had questions about what to do and how to get started, and I answered every one of them."

With uncharacteristic speed, slow running became sought for its ease, inclusivity, sense of community and focus on activity over achievement. The Slow AF Run Club built an app, and Evans even wrote a book. Club membership is up to 40,000, with a free tier that provides access to the community and a paid level that includes coaching and training programs. "It's a safe space where runners can gather and know there's not gonna be any pressure about going faster or any talk about weight loss or diets," Evans says.

As for his own path, he's never returned to the doctor who first scoffed at him, but he's completed eight marathons and has no intention of slowing down — or speeding up — anytime soon. "How fast you are shouldn't matter," Evans says. "What matters is that you're out there doing the thing."

Reference: Found here