Running eight days running

Crowded lanes

Today's run (street): 3.6 miles
Yesterday's run (track): 3.5 miles
Thursday's run (street): 3.2 miles
Wednesday's run (street): 3.4 miles

Today is the eighth day of my vacation and I've run every day since it started. I've covered 28 miles since last Saturday, including today's 3.6. The last time that I covered over 25 miles in one week was during my training for the 2014 Brooklyn Half. On top of my running miles, I've also managed to fit in a couple of hikes, the second one happening yesterday. I'll credit my new Fitbit for motivating me to move more.

I planned to do at least one run at Bethpage this week, but I ended up staying local, except for when I ran at the track. I've purposely kept my run distances in the three mile range because I knew I'd be accumulating mileage through the break. Saturday to Friday's total was 40% higher than what I'd typically run within seven days. I've heard that training volume really shouldn't increase by more than 10% in a given week.

Wednesday and Thursday were neighborhood runs and the streets have been quiet because it's school vacation. I've seen a couple of news articles this week touting the idea that ten minutes of high intensity exercise is as beneficial as a moderate 45 minute run. That may be true but I prefer running. I'm not ready to trade that for Tabata-like workouts. Still, I have been incorporating more anaerobic effort into every run I've done this week.

Oval by Garmin

There was a lot going on when I arrived at the track on Friday. The Syosset baseball team was practicing on the adjacent field and they were blasting country music from a big speaker. I was concerned that it might disrupt my peaceful run. The music itself was weirdly anachronistic for suburban Long Island but somehow it worked. There were a few track teams taking up the inside lanes while I ran, but we managed to peacefully co-exist.

Later in the day, my son and I went to Trailview State Park for a hike. Trailview has a hiking trail and another that's supposedly reserved for biking. On our way back we followed the bike trail and found it much more interesting. It wound around in different directions and seemed to go on forever. Just at the point where I thought it was taking us farther away from our starting point, the trail head came into sight. It was a nice second workout of the day and helped me get to almost 14K steps on Friday.

I considered taking a rest day today but we have plans for an end-of-vacation breakfast tomorrow. If I'm going to run on Sunday I'll need to do it early. Knowing that, I decided to get out again today to keep the streak going. I ran okay and covered some streets I haven't run in months. I wasn't under time pressure and thought about adding a few extra miles, but I didn't want to tempt fate and invite injury. My sciatica returned earlier in the week, this time it was on my right side. I was concerned that my herniated disc had been re-aggravated, but I've been pain free over the last three runs.

I'm happy to have the Fitbit and I'm curious to see how much distance I actually travel during a typical work day. I'll find out next week. My work calendar will be even worse than usual because I had the audacity to take a week off and that means lots of catch up meetings starting Monday. I'm hoping that all the walking I do in between meetings will add up to more than 10K daily steps.

A four minute workout that beats an hour's worth of exercise

4 minutes a day - only $14,000!

Today's run (treadmill): 25 minutes

The skies were clear when I got up this morning but I decided to take the easier road with an indoor run. Part of it was due to time. I'd slept up to my alarm, giving me only 15 minutes to prep, get outside and run. I'm sure that 15 minutes sounds like a lot but, in the early morning, time goes by like a freight train. That is, until you are on the treadmill, where every minute feels like three.

As I ran through my workout this morning, I thought about an article I read on Active.com about Tabata training. This training method involves a short duration program (< 5 minutes) consisting of 20-second maximum-intensity sprints separated by 10-second recovery periods. According to the article, a study compared stationary cyclists doing hour-long, moderately intensive, workouts (control group) to another group that did the Tabata training.

Both groups did five workouts a week for six weeks. The control group's weekly duration was 5 hours while the Tabata's totaled just 20 minutes. The control group improved their VO2 max by 9.5% with no change to anaerobic capacity. The Tabata group improved their VO2 max by 14 percent and improved their anaerobic capacity by 28 percent!

It made me think of that $14,000 ROM machine they've been advertising in the back of Popular Science since my college days. The claim is that this machine gives you a complete workout in four minutes a day. If Tabata is for real, then perhaps that's really true. But according to the article, any maximum intensity workout will do the job. You certainly don't need to spend $14K to get the same benefit as pushups.