Some of my peers are deep into running. I don’t get it. Running is sometimes fun for me but most often painful.
Then I overheard one of them (the fittest) say to a budding runner that he [should] do mostly easy sessions. Okay what’s easy to him? He said that so slow that it can feel awkward and unnatural. What?
Then I searched around and found out about Zone 2 and how you should do most of your work in that zone when building aerobic fitness. And that it is characterized by being able to hold a conversation, although strained.
I searched around and found atheletes like amateur ultrarunners say the same thing.
Then it hit me. I’ve probably been jogging a lot in Zone 3. Or higher? Because the harder you go the more benefit, right? That seems to be the basic logic for everything.[1] Relatively short, painful sessions. Have I been conditioning myself to associate cardio with more pain than is necessary for the average session?
So maybe I should just go on the stationary bike today, do a “conversatitional” (talk to myself) pace and listen to my audiobook for an hour? And try to not let my groin fall asleep.
[1] With nuances like go-to-failure for hypertrophy in weightlifting and more back-off-a-little for strength training.
Then I overheard one of them (the fittest) say to a budding runner that he [should] do mostly easy sessions. Okay what’s easy to him? He said that so slow that it can feel awkward and unnatural. What?
Then I searched around and found out about Zone 2 and how you should do most of your work in that zone when building aerobic fitness. And that it is characterized by being able to hold a conversation, although strained.
I searched around and found atheletes like amateur ultrarunners say the same thing.
Then it hit me. I’ve probably been jogging a lot in Zone 3. Or higher? Because the harder you go the more benefit, right? That seems to be the basic logic for everything.[1] Relatively short, painful sessions. Have I been conditioning myself to associate cardio with more pain than is necessary for the average session?
So maybe I should just go on the stationary bike today, do a “conversatitional” (talk to myself) pace and listen to my audiobook for an hour? And try to not let my groin fall asleep.
[1] With nuances like go-to-failure for hypertrophy in weightlifting and more back-off-a-little for strength training.