Slow Down to Run Farther

I began doing the same thing - running again. I'd already been hitting the gym pretty hard over the past few years but still my waistline had been steadily increasing since leaving the Army. I figured the only thing I used to do in the Army that I no longer do is run.

I'd encountered this before ... years ago after I had a jaw surgery that made me unable to exercise at all for two months, I was unable to run a quarter mile. The slow and steady approach definitely brought me back to passing the two mile run after a few months. As a slow runner, I've done just about everything for increasing range and speed over the years.

So now that I'm a non-Army guy, I definitely don't hold myself to any sort of time standard and just jog along. I can go a variety of distances no problem but I don't temper my energy based on run speed, rather I base it on heart rate. If I jog at roughly 150-160bpm, I can run for quite sometime, burn a ton of energy and feel pretty good when I'm done. When I increase the pace to 170-180bpm I definitely have a shorter range and get out of breath.

It's funny, due to the knee injury I filed my VA disability for, I had actually stopped running and things "seemed" better for the past two years. But just from jogging again (not even running at the old speed) its making me limp around again. Maybe one of these days the VA will actually finish their evaluation.

I was always in decent shape growing up. I played soccer and went to the gym ... and was even voted most athletic at my high school. (Ok, ok - it was a school full of nerds, but still.)

Then, after three weeks at college, I was run over by a bus. Six weeks in the hospital, three months in a wheelchair and severed nerves to muscles in my legs put a damper on my athletic ability.

I continued going to the gym and did various things over the years to try to strengthen my legs (e.g., jogging, weights, casual sports, etc.). While I made good upper-body progress, my legs weren't even close to thier previous abilities. I would force myself to run or lift weights, but doing either for their sake alone wasn't fun (and so was always a struggle).

Eventually, I realized I needed to do something I love if I wanted to make a real difference. Luckily, I was able to help start a little pick-up soccer group that played weekly. I don't know how much of it was the nature of the game and how much was simply my motivation level, but I was able to make significant progress by playing soccer for an hour or two just twice a week.

Some of us from the group started an indoor soccer team to play in a competative league, and that helped improve my abilities even more. (There's nothing like a little competition to get you motivated.) I read online about how to get faster (still a significant hurdle for me), and came up with a soccer training program. Things always seem to get in the way of me being able to follow it week after week, but it still helps to have a set plan. When I have time to workout, instead of being faced with just "going for a run," I can do something I know will help me with soccer - which is much more motivating (and therefore likely to happen).

Lots of it....the slower the better ;-)

Starting out slower and longer (speeding up only while you pass the women coming the other way) is definitely the way to go. It has everything to do with heart rate as VnutZ says. I’ve been off and on again almost every year for 25 years now, mostly because of the winter; and it took me about 15 of those years to learn this.

Here’s another thing to try. Every 3 or 4th time out, run at your fastest comfortable rate; maybe ¾ speed for half or even a third of your usual distance. (Then quit) For some reason I’ve found the two methods sort of play off each other, and you may find you can go a little faster on your entire route after a few times doing this. The latter builds strength while the long slow method builds aerobic capacity. I’ve also found mountain biking, or even street biking to help overall, mostly for strength, but also, as one gets older, the pounding of running can take its toll.

Year round, the best low-impact exercise in the world is Swimming: lap after monotonous lap. I usually hit 1-2 miles when I swim at night in the winter. During the summers, however, I don't swim as much because I'm far too busy maneuvering my way around backwater trails and the like to find likely places to pursue my prey--the elusive smallmouth bass. Or, I'm standing lakeside (and hiking my way around the like) in pursuit of it's larger cousin the largemouth bass. On those days when I'm near the ocean---it's usually some surf or pier fishing--think about hauling a 10+ pound fish out of the surf or 40-50ft UP to the pier.

I'm also starting a weight training regimen--I intend to start kayaking next year 'In Pursuit of Trophy Smallmouth Bass' (My apologies to Yakfish for pimpin his book) as well as keeping up with swimming. I also use an elliptical trainer in the winter--mostly as a warm up to swimming.

One of the other best ways to simply drop pounds is to walk. A brisk walk will keep your hear rate in the 60-70% zone which is ideal for fat burning. Our unit in Korea got more soldiers off the fat-boy program by having them walk everywhere on the base (they were banned from shuttle buses, etc) instead of making them run.

Don't forget about the short piece I wrote on daily calories burned from a sedentary, corporate lifestyle. Simple changes to incorporate more activity into your day can nearly double the amount of calories you burn.

Every day I wake up at 4:30 am, do some yoga or chi gong, then I run for an hour. Then I chop some wood, haul two large buckets of water up from the river for cooking and washing, and do fifty one finger push-ups for kicks. Then, for more kicks, I do kicks. Then I meditate under a waterfall for an three hours, practice my stances, do staff-fighting on a wet log over the river gorge, and break limestone blocks with my face.

Or, at least that's what I would do if I was living one of my ideal lives (not counting the breaking blocks with my face; that's probably never a good idea). Alas, since I wasn't born 1200 years ago in central China (at least, not that I remember)--the best I can manage right now is one night a week of kung fu practice and about half an hour of meditation a day. It may seem irrelevant but the meditation really helps me stay balanced--literally, I stand straighter and more evenly when I've meditated. It also helps with emotional/mental balance.

I used to do a lot more martial arts and meditation, but various unrelated injuries forced me to stop for several years.

I did some running for a while, too. I also found it was largely a matter of pacing. When I first tried running, I'd run flat out for about a block, then I'd have to stop and I'd be winded for about half an hour. Obviously, that didn't last long. Then I went jogging with a friend, and we ran very slowly at first--always slow enough to still have breath enough for a conversation. Doing this, I found I could jog for up to an hour--about 5 kilometers and get a pretty good workout--and gradually speed up. When I had to do it on my own, I kept the pace and was able to do it about three times a week. It's probably time I tried to get back into it...

Of course, you can always revive the good old days of West Point and yell at yourself, tell yourself how much you suck at life, ridicule yourself about being slow, mock yourself at having just killed your platoon, call yourself all kinds of expletives, offer to help yourself quit and then subject yourself to all kinds of cruel calisthenics wearing a gas mask. THAT will motivate you. Right?

Oh yeah. It doesn't.

Sometimes I wish the academic department had belittled the "dumb" cadets the same way the physical education department did the "slow" cadets.

I ran into a lot of the same challenges as Brandon with regards to my legs loosing strength...when I was young I was an avid skater (rollerblading, the "real" skating) and basketball player, that contributed to the strength of my legs...after giving up skating I started running casually, its VERY addicting and really high impact; this eventually contributed to challenges with knee integrity...then, I discovered the joy of cycling...after an injury last year had to set it aside a while, but recently I've been cycling to work (34.5 miles) and doing 100+ mile rides on the weekends...as a result, I can eat pretty much anything I want, and I save on gas, also, its a lot less impact on my knees...

With regards to running faster vs longer, it all depends on your goal. If your goal is to increase cardiovascular capacity (heart strength, size) you'll actually need to do a little of both, the goal should be to keep an elevated heartrate above a certain frequency for as long as possible (I believe cardiologist call it "Tachycardia".) the longer you stay in Tachycardia the more you contribute to the strength of your heart, a good rule of thumb is that you should be able to hold a limited conversation while in motion, if you're too tired to speak chances are you're working too hard...

When I used to run (often around 15 miles at a time, 3 or 4 times a week) I would take aspirin or any pain reliever BEFORE running, after running for a while, it isn't lack of breath or even tiredness that gets to you, its the pain...

The first thing I did to regain my pre-prenancy figure was to push the 7 pound baby out of my body. That did a WORLD of good for my waistline :-)