The FastDay Forum

Reading through Mosley's and Bee's book, "Fast Exercise," early on they reference the following article: Run for your life ... at a comfortable speed and not too far. The article was a footnote to the following:

Joint problems are common in impact sports, but oddly enough this is not the case among runners. If anything, running seems to be protective. The risk to runners who overdo it seems to be more from damage to the heart than to the joints.

Take a look at the article -- there's a "sweet spot" at about 30-45 minutes per day, 6-7 miles per hour, 2-5 days per week, where longevity is maximized. Below that range and you die earlier because of the normal sedentary issues, above that range and you die earlier because your heart apparently is not made to take that kind of pressure for that long at high intensities and it deteriorates.

I find this personally very enlightening and positive because a few months ago I happened to stop training for a half-marathon and start targeting a 10km race distance, and to shift some of the calorie burn to walking. After reading this article, and also after reading Mosley's book, I'm thinking I might instead target a 5km race distance, do high-intensity exercises but only for short bursts by incorporating HIIT, and increase my walking distance to get the calorie burn up there so I can continue eating a good amount of food without putting all the weight I lost back on.

I imagine there are those among us who exercise for much longer distances at much higher paces, some marathoners who might be a tad stressed to read this (and not happy like myself who is feeling less-bad for cutting back my distance because for a while I thought I was just making excuses for not wanting to run my long days...).

I am very happy, however, to read the part about joints and running!

Take a look at the article and please comment. Does it seem reasonable to you?

[carieoates]

Great spot Bruce, thanks for sharing.

Hi BruceE, this is pretty much the situation I find myself in - while I was still able to run for a hour or more I got to a state where the last couple of miles (however far I ran) was a real struggle, slow and miserable. Long slow runs became something to be feared, when I had been doing 12 miles every Sunday for a couple of years.

At about the same time parkrun came along with the concept of a 5km 'race' every Saturday morning and we had a go and loved it. I never ran such short races and had to learn how to manage pace, and in the process discovered 6x 140 meters uphill sprints flat out as a means of developing speed/strength (ie HIIT).

Now, I do not run except on Saturdays, I walk (sometimes with a weighted rucksack), bike and climb on the bouldering wall. My hips are shot but the heart seems to be OK. When the summer comes I shall go back to 6x 400 meters track intervals once a week if I can tolerate the pain, these worked well last year for building speed.

Ooh thanks for posting that! Seems I'm kind of already in that category - not that fast and not that far!!! haha...

Hmm, where do I fit? Have been running 5k for 6 days a week for a while so I fit under the 20 miles per week limit but run 6 days instead of the 2-5. Should I drop a day? Increase my distance to 6k as I have been over the last couple of weeks? Any ideas I run slower at about 5.5mph (9k) my best 5k time is 31.47 and 6k is 39.04. I do love jogging (would never have thought I would say that a year ago ) and do not want to stop, just alter it perhaps for the optimal benefits.

I hear ya, Chickvic. I'm looking at the same kind of thing. I'm doing 5 days per week but probably closer to 4-5 miles per day running, sometimes 6-7 miles.

I think the key is the days off. EOD may be the way to go, or a 4:3... wait, am I talking about running or fasting?

I still want the calorie burn, so what I might try is to somehow fit in enough walking to make up the difference. The two problems with walking, of course, are (1) it takes WAY longer to burn X amount of calories, and (2) I don't get that endorphin high from walking like I do from running...

I'm also thinking HIIT needs to work it's way into this whole thing somehow.

Youtube video:

I've started taking this advice to heart. About 6 months ago I was training for a half marathon and decided, mainly because of the amount of time I spent on my long-day runs (which were up to about 9 miles, approaching 2 hours, and promised to peak at ~15 miles before the race) and how my knees and ankles felt after those same runs, to stop training for that distance and refocus my efforts on a 10km race distance. I was running ~5 days per week and hitting 20-25 miles, sometimes as high as 30 with a long day of 6-8 miles.

Now after this article, and the HIIT workouts, I'm refocusing again on a 5km race distance. My training is going to go down to 3-4 days per week, 3-4 miles per day, trying to keep the weekly running mileage down to 15 miles (or a little less), and keeping my average pace down to a 6-7mph target with a target race time of ~25 minutes (about an 8 minute mile), maybe with high-intensity, short-duration intervals where I hit ~8mph for ~2 minutes a pop. I'll be shifting my mileage to more walking, I figure roughly a 2 for 1 exchange, or 2 miles more of walking for every 1 mile less of running. (Either that or I need to eat a few hundred calories less each day, which I may do instead if I can't find the time to walk...)

[janeg]

I wonder if this is applicable to any aerobic exercise?
I would be happy to stick at 15 mins fighting with MadMax/rowing...
or am I just being a wimp

jan@eg, as you know, I only do 2000m on my rower. It takes me about 12 minutes including three x 30 seconds HIT intervals and only three times a week. MM states in 'FAST Exercise' that there is no increased benefit in doing more than this - so I don't!

Thank you for posting this, my OH and I both found it useful.

I'm trying to build my running back up after some injury niggles late last year. I had already decided that it isn't about speed, it's just about getting out and doing it, a few times a week for about 5km.

Since my OH took early retirement last year we are walking a lot- 6 ish miles at a brisk pace 3 or 4 times a week (depending on weather), so the walking part really struck a chord.