From tech geek, Mark Zuckerberg becomes a running advocate in 2016

He may be the founder and CEO of Facebook, but even Mark Zuckerberg sees the wisdom in not spending the whole day in front of a device reading feeds from social media sites. An obvious believer in work-life balance, Zuckerberg is challenging his millions of followers to join him in running in 2016.

One day after he shared on Facebook of his plan to create a personal artificial intelligence assistant using current technology and patterned after Jarvis of “Iron Man,” on Monday, he shared his goal to run 365 miles this year.

That makes an average of one mile a day. And since he knows that having running buddies help in motivating a person to faithfully observe and follow a physical fitness regimen, Zuckerberg set up a public group, A Year of Running, where members could share their running adventures. He will post his progress periodically on the group.

Mashable agrees with Zuckerberg that running one mile a day is an achievable goal, however, it questions the Facebook founder’s estimate that run at a moderate pace, the one-mile target could be covered in about 10 minutes of running time. It points out that the 10-minute mile would be difficult for beginners and is even quite fast for many experienced runners.

Alexi Tanguay, the group moderator, asked members, who now number over 18,000, to share what apps they use to keep track of daily fitness exercises and as well as share exercises that are practical and easy to use. Among the apps cited are Nike+ Run Club, Runkeeper, MapMyRun, Endomondo, Garmin and Strava.

According to Health.com, a one mile daily run falls within the recommendation of health experts that jogging at least five or six miles a week is good for the body. It would lower risks for certain cancers, stroke osteoarthritis, hypertension and high cholesterol compared to those who jog less or not at all.

Beyond avoiding those ailments, Runnersworld adds that running makes people happier, burns calories and helps keep a person skinnier, strengthens the knees, keeps a person sharper mentally and adds year to life.