<p>Happy Birthday, girls!</p>
<p>I had good traction earlier this week n the exercise front, then petered out again after some schedule shenanigans and a power outage that kept me up too late on a 5 a.m. day. Trying to clear the work deck for a rare vacation is a PITA. I leave Tues. am for San Francisco and Monterey. </p>
Happy birthday to the birthday girls!
<p>Thanks, everyone. And happy shared birthday, abasket!
Now I AM 62 and I can’t imagine running 62 miles in under 10 hours (was a single year age record- which is how they did it back then) like I did in 1983. I did wake up at 4:30am to order my iPhone 6, so there’s that!</p>
<p>Happy birthday MOWC. I can well understand your frustration with your PBM. Much of my legal practice involves the representation of collectively bargained health and welfare benefit funds and PBM’s routinely manipulate what drugs are treated as formulary and non-formulary based on the discount margins the PBM can grab for itself. The price of the drug doesn’t change but the discount given by the drug company may change or, more common still, another drug in the same class may come along with better discounting and the PBM manipulates the formulary/non-formulary lists to push consumer behavior in a direction that will maximize the PBM’s profits. The lack of pricing and cost transparency is appalling.</p>
<p>I have another week and a day to go before my bday - but thanks for the early wishes! I think that SABARAY has a September bday - am I right??!</p>
<p>62 miles run. Tell ya what, MOWC. I’ll split it with you - you do 31 and I’ll do 3.1 - almost the same thing, right? Sort of adds up to 62! </p>
<p>Have a wonderful birthday and birthday weekend if you’re lucky! </p>
<p>Heading out today to do “Day of Caring” for our local United Way so will be getting some cross training in by either cleaning up outside areas downtown or painting sidewalks for a local inner city school walking program! </p>
<p>Cheers to all the Sept. birthday people!!! </p>
<p>Thanks, abasket - my birthday was actually yesterday. Clearly I’ve made a memorable impression during my time here. 
Hope you have a great day as well! </p>
<p>Happy Birthday, sabaray! Well, I did 2.1, so that leaves plenty for the rest of you! It was down to 65 degrees- still humid but we’re getting there! Planning to try 11-12 miles this weekend- probably tomorrow.</p>
<p>Happy birthday to everyone who is celebrating, has celebrated, or will celebrate a birthday!</p>
<p>MoWC, that cost increase is breathtaking. Although be thankful you only need it for 18 months, not forever. I’ll have to make a mental note of this if and when Forteo is suggested to me (since I have osteoporosis, too).</p>
<p>Can someone explain the reasoning behind a low heart rate workout? I thought one goal of exercise is to get your heart pumping! </p>
<p>Sorry to mix you up, sabaray and abasket!</p>
<p>Help, though - I need some motivation. I have now gained back 7 pounds, which is a lot on my frame, and just feeling sluggish and skipping out on exercise. I have a 5K coming up and I’m dreading it since I am cardio-deconditioned. Just not as into it. What are your motivation tips and tricks? </p>
<p>Happy Birthday to all: MOWC, Abasket, and Sabaray!</p>
<p>Still fighting a cold–I’m a big baby when it comes to minor illnesses. Cancelled myself out of a 7 am slow flow yoga class and immediately regretted it, but went back to bed. My D is off today and I’m going to do a long walk with her on a local trail (no mountain peaks or.huge rocks–this trail goes to the ocean and back.)</p>
<p>Low heart rate training still gets your heart rate up into an aerobic zone, but allows you to complete longer workouts feeling more fresh. It builds an aerobic base and is especially effective if you are feeling stale, coming back from an injury etc. </p>
<p>Forteo (not without it’s issues) is absolutely the best option for treating bone density issues. It’s the only drug that actually improves bone density. I won’t get into it all, but most of the other drugs are extremely bad. I’ll see what my new doc says about the need to go past the 11 months that are affordable. Michael is right- it is a racket and/or arbitrary what gets classified as a “specialty drug” and, hence, becomes prohibitive.</p>
<p>The other benefit of low HR training is mitochondria development. Some reference:
<a href=“http://fitnessfatale.com/2014/02/02/happy-strong-mitochondria-are-having-a-party-heart-rate-training-update/”>http://fitnessfatale.com/2014/02/02/happy-strong-mitochondria-are-having-a-party-heart-rate-training-update/</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://runneracademy.com/importance-of-easy-runs/”>http://runneracademy.com/importance-of-easy-runs/</a></p>
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<p>The major reason to do low heart rate distance exercise would be if you are training for an endurance activity (distance running, cycling, swimming to Cuba, x-country skiing, hiking, etc) and want to be able to go for hours at a time WITHOUT your heart rate skyrocketing.</p>
<p>For example, if I do any running, my heart rate takes off like a rocket because I’m not conditioned for running at all. Obviously, that means that I would never be able to keep running for very long. If I wanted to change that, I would have to force myself to run so slowly that my heart rate stayed low. If I kept at it for months of long slow distance, my body would adapt to running longer distances at lower heart rates and then I could work on picking up the pace.</p>
<p>The downside? It’s really only advantageous for endurance sports Low heart rate exercise is terrible bang for the buck in terms of fat loss or fitness or warding off insulin resistance/diabetes or heart health. For those purposes, it is much better to crank it up and really get huffing a puffing for a few minutes several times a week.</p>
<p>Because endurance running “lore” dominates the entire knowledge base of exercise and fitness, we have a situation where the prevailing thought is that you have to get on a treadmill or elliptical and go for hours and hours and hours to “burn calories” and lose weight. In reality, “long slow distance” isn’t very good at accomplishing those goals, especially when the average person doesn’t have 10 hours a week to spend on the treadmill. Real world fat loss/fitness programs should more realistically be based around three to five hours a week of exercise. In that scenario, almost none of that exercise time should be devoted to “long slow distance”.</p>
<p>Here’s the conundrum. WIth long slow distance training, you are really making your body adapt to efficiency. Every cell, every muscle fiber, every heart contraction uses as little energy as possible. As you get more adapted to long slow distance, you burn less and less energy per mile, per step, per breath. That’s the exact opposite of what you want if the point of your exercise is to fit in your jeans!</p>
<p>In reality, there is probably a benefit to including both types of exercise/activity in an overall fitness effort. </p>
<p>Happy birthday to Sabaray and MoWC! </p>
<p>I took a walk in the woods yesterday and came back as drenched as if I’d run the three miles. Ditto for the evening stroll with H last night. Today something tropical is blowing by with lots of rain and sick humidity. Feeling very lazy and I may spend the afternoon watching idad’s videos and dreaming of cooler northern air 
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<p>The thing is- and I suspect Ohiopublic will agree- the low heart rate training that is based on a rational number, such as MAF or the Roy Benson method, is not the same as the people you see walking at 2 miles an hour on the treadmill. My effort is not hard, but it isn’t just a walk in the park. It definitely is giving me aerobic benefit. It is hugely different from walking. When I did low heart rate training for the first time in 1996, I was shocked at how fast I was able to go in a 5K race after weeks of only low heart rate running.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl needs motivation…let’s see…</p>
<p>How many days till the 5k - how long since you have run a decent distance? I would recommend a ocmmitment to doing something at least 4 days a week. Walk. Jog. C25K (even if you’ve done it already - just pick up somewhere and get out there). Bike. Something that will be a constant endurance effort of at least 30 mins. </p>
<p>Is the weight gain due to not exercising? Or just too many stops at the ice cream store or cupcake counter (that would be me!!!) Identify the flaws and get working on ONE of them. </p>
<p>This time another motivation for me would be to put a pair of jeans on. After the comfort of shorts all summer long, I usually have DREADED the feel and fit of putting on jeans. Actually had to wear jeans today for a volunteer event and happily, they were just fine. </p>
<p>You can do it! </p>
<p>Pizzagirl- It seems to me that you try to do too much for a period of time and then either get tired of it (or just tired), or have to travel or something and it all stops. Smoothing out the effort might help. I would also listen to iDad’s preaching, which is very valid, and do some higher intensity work. Really push yourself for short bursts- hands on knees kind of stuff. The weight will come off with that.</p>
<p>Low heart rate training is not just for endurance athletes who want to go very long distances or times. As suggested by MOWC, it also serves as the foundation for later, more intense training. You need a good, strong aerobic base to serve as the foundation for all other training. And even highly conditioned, competitive endurance athletes need a day or two a week of low intensity training to enable their bodies to recover. It is a mistake to make every cardio workout a high intensity session. Very often, that will lead to injuries, drop offs in performance or just getting stale.</p>
<p>Because of after work daylight conditions, I’ve just started my off season cycling training. I’ve put together a periodization schedule that will take me through to the middle of next April. For the next month, my indoor cycling workouts will be at wattage of about 2/3 of my Functional Threshold Power (Lactate Threshold for you runners out there). My weekend outdoor rides will be at about a 14.5 mph avg ( compared with the 19-20 avg that I ended the season with). THe toughest thing about it will be to force myself to go slow! After 4 weeks, I’ll move into the next 4 week phase and from there will move into 2 9 week phases. Each phase will add intensity but all of them will still have slow easy days each week.</p>
<p>For those that are not concerned with competitive athletic training but are seeking to workout for general health, weight management and fitness, doing interval work is important for all the reasons IDad states. Even so, you still need to mix in low intensity days for the reasons I have suggested and even more important, to build the base that will support your high intensity work before you even start the higher intensity stuff.</p>
<p>The problem many runners have is that we do NOT run easy enough on the easy days. We THINK we do, but we don’t. That’s where the heart rate monitor is so important. It really keeps you honest. I (and many others) get hung up on pace and since I used to train at 8:00 and race below 7:00 mile pace, I now think 10:00 is an “easy” pace. It is not. I need to listen to my HR monitor which tells me honestly what my effort level is, despite what my mind wants to think. We are also guilty of thinking an “easy” day is the same pace we do on the hard day, but shorter. Wrong again. Then we can’t run hard enough on the hard days, so every day is the same tiring but not-productive pace!</p>
<p>What MOWC said!!! Same applies to cyclists, except that cyclists can use wattage if the have the gear for it.</p>