The "secrets" on how to generate a training plan

Total Heart Rate Training by Joe Friel was a revelation to me on where training programs come from (I experienced something similar when I learned babies do not grow in lettuces. Did you know they are not air-dropped via storks either?). Anyway, it gives you all the keys you need to structure a training program using heart rate zones. It assumes you know your current lactate threshold; let me know if you're interested in finding out yours - there is a qualitative, free! way to approach it, or I can point you to someone who does it with a portable device. Also, if lactate threshold doesn't mean anything to you, let me know and I'll post info on that too. If you get into this even deeper, you might look for Run Workouts for Runners and Triathletes by Bobby McGee, a catalog of specific workouts with which to populate a training plan.

The limits of a mechanical metaphor

The chronicles tell of Neil Armstrong's dim view of exercise; to paraphrase: "The heart is a pump designed with a limited number of cycles; why would I want to reach its design limit earlier by increasing its beating rate?" As much as I consider Neil Armstrong a role model in many areas of life, we know better than that today. The heart is a muscle, not a mechanical pump. Assuming healthy genes, the heart muscle lasts longer if we exercise it.

And, as it turns out, lots of other organs seem to follow a similar behavior. Recent study after recent study (see the news release about a couple of them in earlier posts) shows that more exercise is better than less - all the way to 50 miles a week, and including knees - that joint sedentarians use to torture us runners psychologically. The studies show that sedentarian knees actually degrade *faster* than running knees. Like the heart, knees benefit from useage.

So go out, run and enjoy yourselves!

Running slows aging and postpones disability, study finds

Running slows aging and postpones disability, study finds

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