Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-208).
Contents:
The biological clock -- Life span and aging -- Racing the clock -- The running start -- Nature bonding and running -- College horizons -- On the science track -- California running -- Running after dreams -- Cheating the biological clock -- On the road to Sparta -- Pacing -- Racing caterpillars and exercising pupae -- The hunt -- On a nature trail -- Running the clock -- The church of nature.
Summary:
Part memoir, part scientific investigation, Racing the Clock is the book biologist and natural historian Bernd Heinrich has been waiting his entire life to write. A dedicated and accomplished marathon (and ultra-marathon) runner who won his first marathon at age thirty-nine, Heinrich looks deeply at running, aging, and the body, exploring the unresolved relationship between metabolism, diet, exercise, and age. Why do some bodies age differently than others? How much control do we have over that process and what effect, if any, does being active have? Bringing to bear research from his entire career and in the spirit of his classic Why We Run, Heinrich probes the questions of how we use energy and continue to adapt to our mutable surroundings and circumstances. Beyond that, he examines how our bodies change while we age but also how we can work with, if not overcome, many of these changes--and what all this tells us about evolution and the mechanisms of life, health, and happiness.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.