Again off the subject, I've found myself discussing this theme a bit in Quora answers (like this one, which is more about lifting weights at later ages). I've settled on a running based exercise routine that seems to allow for relatively low impact and risk but still effective cardiovascular health training. Anyone could just get out and run, and it's not as if I'm making it work a lot better than average, but all the same I want to share the experience here.
Through experimenting with forms I settled on a pattern of running 4 km twice a week (2 1/2 miles or so), and doing one km of that at full speed, as fast as I can sustain. It takes about an hour a week, although some weeks I run three times. I think more ordinary "high intensity interval training" involves shorter duration cycles mixed in with low intensity recovery periods, but I'm not really into trying to apply theory, I just experiment. I don't use a sports watch either, although my wife did buy me an inexpensive version of one awhile back, so I can't say that I don't own one. I've thought about timing that kilometer pace at some point since I really no idea how fast I'm running it, or if the time varies day to day. It may well. [Editing note: I did that; I'll cover how fast I run that kilometer at the end, and what measuring it seemed to mean to me].
Good post; nice talking. No really I will ramble on a bit more about some other related thoughts and background.
I started this at 50, 10 years after doing any other form of exercise, although I had already taken up walking one short stretch home, skipping a bus ride commute leg to walk 3 km or so. Oddly that started because the local Dairy Queen ran a long term special Thai tea flavor, and there was one on that walk home. I probably gained a little weight adding that to my normal diet, but for me a kg or two is weight gain (3 or 4 pounds), since I've weighed between 70 and 74 kg for the past 14 years (154 to 163 pounds).
It wasn't really a problem training when out of shape, except that I did experience two minor injuries, a mild muscle pull and a tendon issue. I kept adding more stretching and warm-up, even a cool-down, to account for that risk. At one point I was running 8 km per outing but I let that go when I tried out the interval theme, maybe a bit over a year ago, and haven't got back to it yet.
I took up yoga in the middle of that three years, and did that for one hour-long session a week for a year or so. Letting that drop related to the pandemic; the studio I was going to closed, then reopened, and later closed for good. Yoga is probably as good as any form of exercise for maintaining health later in life, adding muscle tone, flexibility, body control, and balance, but it's just not cardio training.
For anyone considering this kind of exercise who is completely out of shape I would recommend starting out with walking. I don't have any real experience with weight loss, or concerns related to exercise in relation to being overweight, but for sure walking would acclimate your body to a milder version of similar activity, and I suppose it could potentially factor into weight loss, although changes to diet would probably work better.
One other atypical choice I made in starting out running was to run at a faster pace than joggers here typically adopt. That's a strange thing to discuss, without timed pace to quantify it, but the facts of the matter and this discussion format are what they are. I could guess at pace stats but it might be off. The reasoning was simple enough: for being in terrible shape I was going to sustain quite slow running for the first year or so, at significant distance, so I wanted to train for some months at a faster pace and with walking breaks so I didn't need to adjust running mechanics later on (stride form). Really that slow shuffling form and pace joggers use probably is more efficient and lower impact, better for joints than the natural gait your body adopts when running faster, so this is not a simple judgment call. I never did like that shuffling form of run, which was a familiar option back when I ran cross country a long, long time ago.
As for the "frequent walking breaks" part a large square is set up as a running track near our house, setting up natural stopping points at the corners, and I would usually break at 2 or 3 of them, early on. I still do at the second corner, doing a warm stretch after the first 1.3 km or so (our alley ends in the middle of that square, not on a corner).
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the canal I run beside, also where that one turtle was from |
In my own case I wanted to use limited time exercise for conditioning, not to train for racing, and I knew it wasn't going to be that long before the pace could quicken, even though I wasn't in good shape. For someone else keeping pace limited might seem more comfortable, or a desire to run greater distances would pair well with a slower pace. That full speed kilometer still does feel a little rough, a year or more into that form (so 100 runs or so in, probably a bit more), but the time to endure it is limited.
For me to continue to increase conditioning, to not just level off as I have, I would probably switch back to doing an 8 km version for one of two weekly runs. Or it would be possible to run two of the 1 km legs at full speed, but that might be a bit much.
Timing running:
I recently tried this out for the first time. I've long since been curious about how fast I ran that "top speed" 1 km section, but at the same time I don't want to feel like I need to match a certain timed pace. The first time I timed it, in the last week, it was right at 4 minutes. That seemed slow to me; that's a 6:26 mile pace (per this easy to use reference matching distance timing and speeds). I timed it again the next run, maybe just under 3:50, still not so fast, but more what I expected, down towards a 6 minute mile.
Why does it matter if it matches a certain mile time? I compare it back to running times in my teens, which isn't really a fair comparison. I could run a 5k trail race in about 19 minutes then, a 10k road race in around 44 or so, and an 800 m track event in about 2:10. Those aren't good competitive times, to be clear; I wasn't a good runner. I never loved the experience and didn't train year-round, which is how you push on to higher training levels.
On the positive side just running twice brought up that my "top speed" left a bit out related to really pushing my current potential. That was never supposed to be a race time, and even for the timed versions I skipped the "sprint to the finish" part, just picking up speed and running at a slight oxygen intake deficit towards the end. If I did push a little harder I probably would improve conditioning better.
On the negative side I was always leaving space for running against how I felt that day, not really trying for a good personal time, which kept it comfortable. Just from timing that twice I'm considering if I couldn't get that down to closer to 3:30, and a more respectable towards 5:30 mile time. Should that be a goal? If I was going to run any shorter distance races, sure. Just for getting in decent shape it's not as clear.
But then why not keep going; it seems natural to want to keep improving, even without showing that off to other runners in a race context. It's most typical for people to make running social connections, then those themes pair even more naturally. People at work run, some of them, but without racing to include as Facebook post accomplishment announcements that sort of goal oriented form doesn't work. They naturally seem to try to run further rather than faster; posts never really seem to highlight an especially impressive 10k time, but they do get around to running 20k or marathons. If I liked the activity of running more that would make more sense. To me it's a like a variation of being on a treadmill; doing it for only an hour to an hour and a half a week is a positive.
I have to factor in that my exercise recovery time is slow at this age, compared to what I experienced when younger. It's too much to run every other day, to only get one rest day, given that intensity level. I don't remember any soreness related to running when younger, beyond the early season conditioning phase. I could easily run three days a week if I adjusted form, adding one slower "active recovery" version, or mixing in longer distance with higher intensity short runs. I would have to just jog slowly, as most others do, if I wanted to run 4 or 5 days a week.
The point here was to share this in case it's of interest, to spur consideration of how different approaches and forms might work for others. Maybe if I do step up training a later post could work better for bragging about results. I've considered trying out a race before but social gatherings mostly dropping out over the last two years didn't help with that.
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