Weight: 220.0 (-11.2)
Fat: 33.6% (-5.7%)
Meals: Lunch, dinner
Exercise: Cardio (Treadmill 24:00 WL5 - 304 calories, 1.71 miles)
Pictures: Front/Side/Back/Flex
I debated the best name for this post... I thought Speed Kills, or The Need For Speed, but I've always loved that title so it just stuck when it popped into my head.
Updates
Before I dive into higher velocities, I'd like to do a couple updates. First of all, I didn't post about it yesterday, but after yesterday's drop resulting in a full 10 pound weight loss, I was going to make the prediction that I was going to jump back up into the under 10 pound range. Instead, I dropped another full pound. Now if I analyzed this rationally I could probably determine that I did work hard yesterday, I was up very late without eating a third meal, and that I slept in and was probably a little dehydrated as a result. Or to put it a completely different way, I'm 0 for 2 on daily weight predictions, therefore I predict that I will weigh more, the same or less than 0.5 pounds every day for the next 100 days. I figure this is a win-win... either I consistently lose weight or one of my prognostications will be verified!
Secondly, I reheated yesterday's uneaten pizza for lunch today. I didn't want to overeat because my time is short and I really need to get ready to go out tonight, which means jumping on the treadmill soon after eating. So I fixed myself another 2 cheese sticks and 2 slices of pizza, or about half of what I might have eaten previously. I was stuffed, somewhat uncomfortably so. One of the justifications (and it's a good one in my opinion) for eating six small meals a day rather than 2 or 3 bigger ones is that your stomach shrinks and makes it more difficult to overeat. Although eating six times a day means even a 50 calorie surplus every other meal means adding a pound of fat every 3.5 weeks... slim margin of error.
That being said, watching my portion sizes for the past 3.5 weeks has resulted in a noticable change in my capacity to eat. There are times when I knew I'd gone through my alloted calories for the day and I was still hungry for more. I felt like a bottomless pit. Being able to eat what was once a reasonable portion for me and feeling like I'm eating too much is a very pleasant change. Of course, just as stomachs can contract, it can expand again. After my 4 weeks of boot camp and the six meals a day I definitely ate less when I resumed my 2-3 meal a day eating. But I steadily returned to the bottomless pit. Making an effort to eat normal portion sizes is therefore added to my list of eating goals.
Finally, I've run three days with my Vibrams now and I have to say those initial problems have disappeared. The seam rubbing was gone yesterday and today they felt completely natural on my feet. The toe separation is still a bit odd, but instead of being uncomfortable it's almost a reminder that "Hey, I have toes". Not sure I'll ever adjust to that, but as long as it doesn't actually bother me, I'm perfectly fine with that. The biggest issue remains putting the shoes on. Having to line up your toes, slip the front of the shoe down snug before pulling up the heel is a lot more involved than the slip ons I wear. Fortunately the velcro strap means I don't have to tie laces saving me a bit of time.
Run Faster, Not Longer
And back to the topic at hand: my efforts to run faster but for a shorter amount of time. There are a couple reasons I wanted to do this. Unless you're training for a long-distance marathon, running for longer and longer has almost as many, if not more, downsides than it has upsides. The health benefits of running start to be balanced out by the stress of longer periods of running.
The most obvious and important problem is your joints. Specifically your knees and ankles. Many doctors or physical therapists actually have a very dim view of running for this reason as they see a number of worn out knees and other joints as a result of long-time running. Some even recommend that you avoid the activity. I happen to believe that this is partially an issue of poor running habits (poorly designed running shoes vs barefoot running in particular), plus a personal bias based on a certain amount of anecdotal evidence. After all, if you're a doctor that specializes in knees, chances are a lot of the problems you have to treat involve runners.
And there is reason for concern. If you watch the barefoot running video I previously posted, with the slow motion treadmill runner where they graphed the impact of his running below the close up video of his feet. If you paid attention you might have noticed that the force of the impact was 2.5 times his body weight. I have no idea if this is typical (I suspect it is) or whether this is in a range of forces. Either way, my ankles are already supporting 220 pounds or 50 pounds more weight than I should be carrying. Multiply that by 2.5 and suddenly my ankles are absorbing 550 pounds of force. Even worse that force is inconsistent, alternating between 0 and 550. Doing that for an hour a day doesn't sound like a good idea.
There's also evidence that shorter bursts of energy, or interval training, offers even bigger benefits in an extremely short amount of time than performing cardio for extended amounts of time. I'm not doing intervals or HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), although my plan is to include this style of workout into my routine in the future. But I'm still making an effort to shorten the amount of time I'm running while maintaining a high level of intensity.
Yesterday, I ran for 23 minutes at a slightly higher speed (average speed, 4.25mph) compared to the day before when I ran for 33 minutes (average speed, 3.98mph). I burned fewer calories, 288 to 365, and ran a smaller distance, 1.63 miles to 2.19, but by limiting my workout time and increasing my intensity, I reduce my risk of injury substantially while maintaining most of the benefits. I'm going to continue to keep the bulk of my workouts below half an hour, certainly less than 45 minutes.
Common sense tells us that working harder is going to get more results, and purely in terms of calories burned, you're definitely going to see a benefit. But I disagree that burning calories should be your top or even in the top three reasons for doing cardio. Nor do I believe you can't get at least 2/3rds of the benefits while substantially reducing your risks. I'll cover my reasons for doing cardio in the future, but I think it's important to emphasize that you shouldn't be doing cardio just to burn calories.
I strongly recommend that you take a glance at this study summary with telling graphs. As you can see, the benefits of oxygen absorbtion (which is where the endurance aspect comes from, and I believe one of the major benefits to doing cardio in the first place), really trails off after 30 minutes of exercise. It's hard to say where between 30 and 45 minutes this happens, but it does. Meanwhile the increase in injuries definitely spikes up between 30 and 45 minutes. Note that this is a single study and you shouldn't infer too much from it.
Also, I'll point out that injury frequency increases exponentially with workout frequency. So running 7 days a week is probably a bad idea. I have no plans to reduce this for now, although when I approach/hit my maintence phase I'm going to alternate strength training sessions with cardio, so my frequency will go down. But unlike workout duration there is a more clear benefit to increased frequency, so I'll continue to take this risk, but it is an educated risk.
