1 . Ken Campbell had last attempted running at high school. When his wife, Susan, injured her foot, she needed _________ to rejoin her running group, so Campbell went along to keep her company in the _________. “We were just walking at the beginning,” he says, “I was heavy, and weighed over 90kg.” But as the weeks and months passed, the weight _________, Susan recovered and Campbell’s _________ grew. At the age of 63, he ran 50km, and at 70, he completed a 100km ultramarathon.

So how does someone with no _________ precedent (先例) become an ultradistance runner in his 60s and 70s? Susan had run marathons before her _________, but for Campbell, the turning point came when Susan’s Fleet Feet running group _________ the trails in the Sierra Nevada foothills near their home.

Campbell went out to visit Susan’s group, and “the trails were a terrible _________. It had been raining, and I was slipping, _________ and falling. But I thought, well, I like this a lot.”

What he liked __________ was the feeling of “being wrapped by the trail, being __________ by the closeness of the vegetation (植被) and the nearness of the river. I was walking where __________ people had walked for thousands of years and where miners had walked on their way to gold.”

Running the 100km ultramarathon took Campbell 16 hours. When Campbell __________ the finish line at 3 am, Susan handed him a 100km sticker to __________ on the back of his truck. He already had a 50km one on there. “It is a public statement that you are part of this __________,” he says. “Wherever we park, I see a line of __________ with their various stickers and I feel that we are a tribe (部落).”

Campbell suffered arthritis (关节炎) before he started running, and was “a(n) __________ for knee replacement”, but for now, he is __________ on surgery. It can __________ the running—but the “sense of wellbeing and accomplishment will carry me on forever”, he says, “If I can’t run, I will __________.”

2 . If this time last year you had told me that an exercise bike would save me, I’d have_________you were wrong. I’d have protested that I’m not athletic at all. My coordination is lacking and my_________is like tortoise.

In Grade 7, my physical education teacher watched me, eyebrow_________, as I tried my best to follow the gymnastic training. “You’re doing pretty well in my class,” he said, “for someone with no_________for sports at all.”

In high school, I wasn’t_________for a single team. I was bookish and slow, and that_________of being better suited to quiet reading and leisurely walks_________with me for a long time.

I discovered jogging in my late 20s, and I enjoyed the feeling of quiet accomplishment—without the fear of_________teammates. I tried yoga and always prioritized_________pursuits over physical ones.

It was,__________, my gradually worsening mental condition that finally forced me to rethink about exercising. This winter, under pandemic, I found myself__________under the weight of exhaustion. I knew__________had to change. I needed an outlet to release the__________of months of online conferencing and on-and-off solo parenting at home. Jogging in the morning wasn’t enough to__________it.

I__________an exercise bike and hoped to have positive results. Since early March, I’ve hardly__________a day on my bike. I’m not the fastest, but I stick to it. I’m finally learning that movement isn’t__________about athleticism (运动才能). More than anything, it’s the feeling of accomplishment when you insist on something__________outside of your comfort zone.

Athletes find glory in sports. For the rest of us, the__________is more personal: better sleep, improved mood and boosted confidence. It was never about talent. That’s what I wish my physical education teacher had told me. If only he’d said, “You’re doing really well in my class. Look at your__________.”

6 . Even though people have been paralyzed (瘫痪的) playing sports like rugby and football, extreme sports take the whole ordeal (磨难) to the next level. Sports like downhill cycling are very dangerous because one would be going downhill, over rocky or dirt zone, through forests, even at potentially deadly speeds. A slip up could be your downfall.

Nobody who gets into extreme sports goes with the desire to do harm to themselves. With that, athletes train for years and years before they attempt anything extreme. To most people, extreme sports are extreme simply because they take more skill than what an average person has. An athlete with skill and training makes an extreme thing become a daily routine, which does not wipe out the danger, but greatly reduces it.

Even when there is a lot of skill involved, things might not go the athlete’s way, not at all. Luck and circumstances have a lot to do with how things develop, whether above 8,000 meters or in a wood, going downhill. In some places, crossing the street is an extreme sport, considering how wild traffic can get.

Some view parkour, the sports of running, jumping and climbing under, around and through buildings, as an extreme sport, while it is more of a life philosophy, where the athlete does not have to do anything remotely dangerous. Free soloing, which means climbing a rock or ice face without safety gear, is absolutely deadly, where one slip means almost certain death, depending on the height, of course. Skateboarding is relatively safe, but if you constantly find ridiculous places to practice on, like the fence of a bridge, then things can get very complicated. The extreme part depends on the athlete.

To summarize, yes, extreme sports are dangerous, but the danger depends on the athlete, their choice of sport, direction in which they take it, as well as the circumstances. Some things are out of our control, while others we can influence through exercise and healthier risk choices.

8 . If you’re a runner who secretly hates running, here’s some good news: settling into a leisurely jog rather than an all-out run may actually be better for your health in the long term.

A team from Denmark followed over 5, 000 people taking part in the Copenhagen City Heart Study, and tracked whether they were non-joggers, or joggers who kept a slow, moderate (中等的), or fast pace. The participants’ health was tracked over the next 12 years, and so was their mortality (死亡率): 28 of the joggers and 128 of the non-joggers died.

The connection was this: Joggers of mild and moderate intensity had a lower risk of death than the fast joggers. In fact, the lowest mortality risk was that of the mild intensity joggers. The fast-paced joggers had about the same mortality rate as sedentary (久坐的) people. This suggests that there may be an upper limit to hard exercise, after which the benefits fall off.

“The U-shaped association between jogging and mortality suggests there may be an upper limit for exercise amount that is best for health benefits,” said study author Peter Schnohr. “Anything more is not just unnecessary; it may be harmful.” From the current study, jogging just three times per week, for less than 2.5 hours per week was associated with the lowest overall mortality risk.

There have been a lot of mixed messages about the “right” amount of exercise and what intensity is best. The World Health Organization has suggested that the current 150 minutes per week recommendations are strenuous for most people to tackle, and that expectations should be lowered, since, after all, anything is better than nothing. Everyone probably has a level of activity that feels best to him or her. But at least the growing consensus seems to be that more — if you’re pushing yourself very hard— is not necessarily better. And it may even be worse.