The New Training Schedule

I have made a discovery… I am very unfit aerobically. What you say – how can that be with all the exercise you do? But its true. Read on to be enlightened…

Now when I look at all the exercise I have done over the last 8 months since I joined the gym and ditched walking, I have NEVER exercised within my aerobic capacity – I have always pushed myself so hard that I am exercising at about the 90% level. But at the end of the fitness challenge that I was involved in (end of August), I was very disappointed to find that my fitness had only improved minimally. A friend who was on the winning team suggested that I really should have been on their team so that I could have been a part of the winning prize – assuming that I must have improved significantly, and was shocked when I told her my results “But you do so much more than the rest of us – that can’t be possible” At the time I thought that it might have been related to the fitness test being done on a bike, because I don’t do any bike riding. But looking back – the test that was done required me to keep my heart rate at a low level whilst the resistance to the bike increased, and I had trouble with this.

From some of the runners’ forums I have listened to people discuss the Hadd approach to low heart rate training – which involves running below your maximum aerobic threshold (usually talked about as 85% of max hr) to train yourself to run aerobically and utilizing body fat as the primary source of fuel, instead of glycogen. Apparently when you run anaerobically (over 85%) you use glycogen (the sugar/energy you currently have in your system) but once you have depleted this, runners hit “a wall” when their bodies try to switch to burning body fat, and they aren’t used to it/very good at it.

But it also talks about how if you always run anaerobically – you will build fast twitch fibres in the leg muscles, but these are no good for endurance runs – you need to build slow twitch fibres, and this ONLY occurs when you run aerobically.

So how much training have I done within my aerobic capacity? NONE
I have always pushed myself hard in an effort to be super fit – and I know it has made a difference (eg I now have a low resting HR level, I can achieve much higher levels of activity in classes, I can run and at a reasonable level etc) but I think I’ve really developed those fast twitch fibres, giving me lots of spring and “go gettum”, but I haven’t been improving my base aerobic fitness. I think I have pushed myself too hard too fast to meet my City/Bay running goals, and missed a few important steps along the way.

The Hadd method requires regular long runs, whilst keeping my heart rate below 138 bpm at all times. Eeek – 138 bpm – I didn’t think that was possible! And I was right. When I first headed out to try this, within 10 metres my HR was up to 155 and I had to stop and walk to get it to return to a lower level. And I continued to have to walk/run every 10 metres or so. Apparently, when you have good aerobic fitness – you can run at a reasonable pace at this level. REALLY? I have to say if that’s possible, then I’m all for it. Because when I stopped to walk there was no need to catch my breath and the run really required no effort. At that level of effort I could run for hours…..Did I say hours? Is this how the distance runners do it?
Because all of my running up until now has been very hard work (hence the high HR!), I often don’t look forward too it because its so much effort! If I can follow this technique (and the plan is that if you keep yourself within this HR threshold, after a minimum of 6 weeks the mitochondria and slow twitch muscles will begin to grow) and continually increase my pace without increasing my HR – this would be fantastic! I might actually enjoy running!

I think my difficulty running within an aerobic capacity shows how much I need to learn to do this! Out of interest, the first day I trialed it – I had to walk as much as I ran (very frustrating), but with practice I have changed my running technique to require far less thigh movement and far more calf/ankle movement which is more efficient and allows me to run more without my HR going up . I trialed this on the treadmill on Thursday – and basically I’ve had to drop my speed to about 7.5km/hr (from 10!). (and if you can call it speed because it doesn’t really feel like running – more like a shuffle). But on Saturday when I ran 6 kms – I ran most of the time, and averaged over 8kms/hr. Now I don’t think that’s from building the right muscle fibers (too soon) but I think I’ve learnt to be far more efficient – and that’s a good thing in itself. Its very frustrating (and embarrassing – running so slowly on the open road!) but ultimately, if it will provide me with some real gains, I think it will be worth it. I will keep you up to date with my progress, am entering every thing into the “cool runners running log”, and it keeps track of every little detail.

I haven’t done justice to Hadd’s methods – have left heaps out, and the article is well worth a read, particularly for those aspiring runners who read my blog (eg Trisca, Jessie, Girl Running) so I will try and attach it.

Here’s to all the slow twitch muscle fibres I’m going to develop over the next few months….WOOHOO!