The Run Strategies website was created in 2015 primarily to explore issues related to aging runners. To date, the content has primarily been blog posts through my own journey as an aging runner. I recently surpassed 100 posts and have been thinking about next steps.
When I was taking exercise physiology classes at UVM, I came across Andy Galpin, a research professor at Cal State Fullerton and Director of CSUF’s Center for Sports Performance. Andy has created around 40 YouTube videos, ranging from five minutes to over an hour on a range of exercise physiology topics. These are fun and informative with interactive video elements. He hasn’t posted a new one in a year and maybe he feels he’s exhausted the most relevant topics.
The primary principles of exercise physiology pertain to all ages. We all function within the same planes of movement and depend on such things at VO2 max and moving oxygen and glucose in and CO2 and lactic acid out of our muscles during performance. However, each aging runner need only look at their own experience to know there are differences with aging. But what are these differences and what drives the change?
The Run Strategies blog posts have looked at some of these issues. But I believe having a YouTube channel to present these and other topics as they relate to aging has a potential audience. For example, what are the main drivers of a decline in our performance (race times!)? And more important, what might we do to attenuate those changes? Some time ago, I reserved the URL, The Senior Runner, and that seems more descriptive than Run Strategies. Also, I started a list of possible topics and quickly came up with 25. No lack of material!
In addition to content decisions, there are some needs to resolve and questions to answer, such as:
- Building a team to help with the tech and marketing side of this. My goal is to have these be high quality presentations worth watching. There is a lot out there on the Internet. How can TSR cut through the traffic and attract the intended audience?
- Length of episodes and depth of material. I do see these as educational and feel that will involve some detailed diagrams, technical terms, and commentary. This is, after all, science. And any field of science has its own jargon. The aim, then, is to make this accessible to a range of viewers. For starters, I envision 30-minute episodes. Perhaps a five- to 10-minute video might serve as an introduction and way to pique interest to tune into a longer presentation on a particular topic.
- Frequency of episodes. While from a marketing perspective it would be good to have a consistent schedule, this may not work. Rushing to meet deadline is not what I have in mind. Episodes may need to simmer and gather feedback from trusted reviewers. It would be great to issue a new episode at least monthly. Once the ball gets rolling and the team galvanized, perhaps more often.
I get excited thinking about this and look forward to digging into the details. I wonder why I hadn’t thought about doing this sooner!