Gretchen Reynolds

Couch potatoes and desk jockeys take heart: Even the country’s premier health and fitness columnist has to motivate herself to exercise more. Which is why Gretchen Reynolds, the New York Times’ phys ed columnist for 10 years, is running the Big Sur Half Marathon on Sunday, Nov. 12. She knows there’s solid scientific research that shows setting a goal and then telling everyone about it increases the likelihood of success. So she’s running her first race in 25 years.

Even before training, she already moves more than most Americans: She runs a few miles three to four times a week, a habit she picked up in college. But she feels our collective pain when it comes to exercise, which is part of the reason why she wrote her 2012 book, The First 20 Minutes, laying out the scientific framework for why simply getting off the couch and walking is beneficial.

Besides the half-marathon, Reynolds is speaking on Saturday, Nov. 11, as part of a two-day Health & Fitness Expo in Monterey. She’ll be sharing the latest science about what makes women runners unique in a talk titled, “Blood, Sweat, Bosoms and Babies.” She draws her knowledge from her years of not only writing her column, but also as a former senior editor at Runner’s World, Bicycling, and Outside magazines. The Weekly caught up with her by phone from her home in New Mexico.

Weekly: In the hierarchy of high school, were you a science geek, a jock or a newspaper nerd?

Reynolds: I was a newspaper nerd. I hate to date myself, but I was in high school ahead of Title IX, so there were not many sports opportunities for girls. I ran track, but the track program was pretty underfunded and ignored. We did not get good instruction and it was not a lot of fun. I started running more seriously in college, for mental health and the shallow purposes of not getting fat. I was editor of our high school paper, and I was much more interested in writing and theater than sports. That came later.

Where did you first get the idea for The First 20 Minutes?

It grew out of the column. It turned out there was a tremendous appetite for the science of how to perform well, how to be healthier, how to exercise better – not just opinion, but good, solid peer-reviewed science. The column turned out to be very popular.

One column I wrote in 2008 was about stretching [research showing it does not improve performance or prevent injuries]. It came out the same week as Obama winning the presidency, and was the most emailed column of that week.

The title is sort of an encapsulation of the whole book, showing that most of the health benefits come from the first 20 minutes you get off of the couch. Especially for someone that hasn’t been exercising, the first 20 minutes are the most potent. The real point of the book was: Just do anything.

I know I need to be exercising more…

Let me interrupt you here. I think we’ve done a real disservice to people by talking so much about exercise, because exercise doesn’t sound fun at all. People just need to be moving around more than they are, and you don’t need to call it exercise at all. There’s very good science behind this. Getting up and walking around your office is going to have a profound impact on how healthy you are. Walking is the most potent exercise human beings ever invented. If we did just a tiny bit more as a species, we would have an enormous drop in diseases. If I could get that message across, I would feel that I had done my life’s work.

How do we stay motivated to be more active?

Get a dog! I have two. I run or walk them every day. The scientific evidence to date shows that the only thing that keeps people exercising or moving is if they like it. My advice is to find the sort of exercise that is most enjoyable for you.

Gretchen Reynolds speaks at 2pm Saturday, Nov. 11 at the Big Sur Half Marathon Health & Fitness Expo, Portola Hotel, 2 Portola Plaza, Monterey. Free. montereybayhalfmarathon.org