WORDS TO LIVE BY:

AEROBIC RUNNING means running within your capacity to use oxygen.

EVERYONE, according to his or her physical condition, is able to use a limited amount of oxygen each minute. With the right kind of exercise, you can raise your limit. This Maximum LIMIT is called – The STEADY STATE = the level at which you are working to the limit of your ability to breathe in, transport, and use oxygen. If you EXCEED this limit, the exercise becomes ANAEROBIC. When this happens, your body’s metabolism changes to supply the oxygen you need to supplement the oxygen you are breathing in. This re-conversion process has limits, so the body is always limited in its anaerobic capacity. When you run anaerobically, you incur what is called “OXYGEN DEBT”. Oxygen Debt is accompanied by the build-up of lactic acid and other waste products, which in turn leads to neuro-muscular breakdown, or simply, tired muscles that refuse to work.

The more intense the exercise becomes, the faster and less economically your body’s fuel is used and the faster lactic acid accumulates.

In other words, the faster you run, the greater your need for oxygen to continue becomes.

CONDITION YOURSELF:

Sked 3 times a Week for LONG RUNS.
Why?

To improve many parts of the physiology:
1. under-developed circulatory system are enhanced;
2. neglected capillary beds are expanded and new ones are created.
This increases oxygen transportation and utilization, thereby improving your STEADY STATE.

Also:
1. Heart becomes bigger and is able to pump more blood with each contraction and to pump that blood faster.
2. Lungs become more efficient, with increased pulmonary capillary bed activity, which improves the tone of your blood, allowing you to get more oxygen out of each breath.
3. Blood circulation throughout your body becomes better;
4. Waste products are eliminated more easily.

DO ANAEROBIC TRAINING:

Once you have developed cardiac efficiency through aerobic exercise, it is time to develop you r ability to exercise anaerobically, to increase your ability to withstand oxygen debt.

Common sense: the slower you can run, the farther you can run.

With anaerobic training, your objective is to create a big oxygen debt and lower your blood pH level so that your metabolism is stimulated to build buffers against fatigue. This is done with INTERVAL or REPETITION TRAINING.

Similar to the three long runs in aerobic conditioning, you should run hard (anaerobically) three times a week. Be sure to allow yourself to recover betwwen hard workouts, at least a day in between. The idea is to stree your system, recover completely, then stress it again.

The one important thing to keep in mind is to make your distance at least 200 meters or more; it takes a distance of this much to lower your blood pH level generally.

Anaerobic training is essential if you want to race well. Bear in mind however, that if you overdo anaerobic work, you will sacrifice the very thing you have worked so hard to achieve, your good aerobic conditioning, which determines your performance level.

MILES MAKE THE CHAMPIONS = it is wise to run once a day at faster aerobic speeds and, supplementary to this running, to jog as many miles as you find time and energy for; even if it is only for a fifteen minutes jaunt.

The more miles you are able to run aerobically in training, then the greater endurance you will be able to develop.

SHARPEN YOURSELF:

You have built your aerobic capacity and developed your anaerobic capacity. ow you need to keep your ability to tolerate oxygen debt high without dragging your condition down.

Do some Short Sharp Sprints of 50 to 100 meters with 50 to 100 meters floats in between. This will allow you to tire your muscles without lowering your overall blood pH. Doing sharpening once a week is most effective for maintaining your maximum anaerobic development. In conjuction with races or time trials during the week, you can continue to improve your race times for quite a while.

MARATHON CONDITIONING:

It is necessary to run as many miles or kilometers as you possibly can at economic or aerobic speeds to lift your oxygen uptake to your highest possible level as the foundation upon which to base your anaerobic or speed training.

To gain the best results for the time spent in training, it is important to run at your best aerobic speed = speed at a level just under your Steady State or Maximum Oxygen Uptake.

Even very slow running will effectively increase general cardiac efficiency and therefore raise the oxygen uptake.

One can run too fast or too slow and it is important to control the running efforts as well as possible if the optimum results are to be achieved in the time spent exercising.

It is important to do a large volume of training and it has to be economic, or aerobic.

It is necessary to time your runs over measured courses, and to progressively increase the running efforts as fitness improves.

The running time daily should be increased so that as your oxygen uptake improves you will find the training progressively easier, and your possibilities of increasing the running time greater.

Suggested Schedule:
Monday 1 hour
Tuesday 1.5 hours
Wednesday 1 hour
Thursday 1.5 to 2 hours
Friday 1 hour
Saturday 2 hours or more
Sunday 1 to 1.5 hours

This running should be done easily and the miles covered of no real account. The time spent running is the most important part.

Do not go straight into such schedule, but work up to it according to your fitness and ability to train.

Once you are sure you can run for two hours without any real problems, then start out training to the watch per mile as follows: Run over a measured courses for one week, without any influencing factors such as watch, per mile pace, or another runner. Try to run evenly in effort and as strongly as your condition allows.

Start a watch at the start of the runs, so as to be able to take the overall time for each run at the conclusion; this giving an estimate of your capability and condition at this stage of your training.

The time taken from the first week’s training should give you a fair indication of your capacity to train and a basis on which to train further.

The following week, you should use these times for control and then run the same course at the comparable times by checking each mile time as you pass your mile markers.

After a week or so, you will find that the previous times used for control are becoming too slow for you, as your oxygen uptake improves.

For best result, run at your best aerobic effort and supplement by running at easier effort on some day rather than running same mileage a day.

The total weekly mileage that you manage to do will be governed by your climactic conditions and available time for training. However, it is important to realize this point; that IT IS NOT THE DISTANCE THAT WILL STOP YOU IN TRAINING AS MUCH AS THE SPEEDS. If you keep the running efforts to a level within your capabilities, then you will quickly be able manage a large mileage. It is better to run a long way slowly rather than to curtail the mileage possible by running too fast.

Run with what you feel you are capable of…the more the better.

Run on Flats, Hills, Any Terrain, even on undulating courses.

It is also wise to jog easily every morning for at least 15 minutes or longer. The longer the better.

This is quite a scientific approach. I myself am nose-bleeding. Yet, browsing through the concepts and what the author says, this is easily adaptable and doable.

To sum it up:

1. PHASE 1 – RUN LONG RUNS
2. PHASE 2 – SPEED TRAINING
3. PHASE 3 – MAINTAIN BY PRACTICING.
4. KEEP ON RUNNING.

Do not mix all the ingredients. Instead, pour them one by one in your system, and spread them well. Taste and see the product afterwards.

Next article to come: RESISTANCE TRAINING.