Neuroplasticity. Odd word for a running blog, right?
I know it’s been a while since I posted here. I was absorbed in a book called The Shallows by Nicholas Carr. This is a book that everyone should read. It explains how the internet is re-wiring our brains and making us shallower thinkers. I know. Another strange idea to bring up on a blog. Basically, the author explains how reading began changing the way we think way back when Gutenberg’s printing press started spinning. Now, people are less likely to go to a book for information and more likely to just Google it. This is re-organizing our brains once again.

According to the author, reading books leads to deeper level of concentration. Our brains focus more in-depth on the information and make more meaningful connections. This causes certain areas of our brains to physically change. This physical change is possible because of neuroplasticity. Our brains are flexible. The parts that are exercised grow stronger. Whenever we learn a new skill or start practicing different things, new connections and pathways are formed.

Leading a mainly digital life causes different changes to take place. The www encourages us to skim rather than read, to skip around on various links, pages, and tabs rather than focus deeply. We end up flitting from flower to flower like a bee rather than drinking deeply and thinking hard on a source. There IS a lot of information out there, but our brain becomes overwelmed. Shallower pathways are formed in the brain and many areas are briefly engaged but none deeply.

So what does this have to do with a running blog? The neuroplasticity was interesting to me. According to studies cited in The Shallows, certain groups engage certain areas of the brain so much that those areas are appreciably larger. For example, taxi drivers in London have significantly larger areas near their hypocampus. These are the areas responsible for remembering streets, maps, and directions. The cabbies are so familiar with the streets of London that it has changed their brains.

This made me wonder if the same change occurs in long-time runners. I’ve often said that I can tell the distance from my house to any place in Holland within a quarter of a mile. So I think this part of my brain has been engaged. I also wonder, though, if training ideas have also re-wired my brain. I study Running Times, Runners’ World, Pete Pfitzinger, et al and have studied them for years now. Has all of this reading on physiology and training re-wired my brain. Has bi-annual marathon training for the past seven years changed the structure of my mind. Does distance running in general change the brain’s make-up.

I think it does. Distance runners are often strangley obsessive about their sport and their training. I’ve often wondered if people like this choose distance running because of this or if running causes it. Neuroplasticity has me leaning toward the sprort causing these traits. How has running changed your brain? How are these changes good? How are these changes bad?

Go out and read The Shallows. Think about it on your next long run.