Are you new in the running world? Or are you coming back to running after a long break? If that’s the case, you’ll learn in this post some fundamental aspects of running that will help you getting started.
So, you are about to start running. As a first step, I recommend to ask yourself what’s the purpose of your run today. If the purpose is to get faster and stronger for a coming race, then there are some rules for you to consider, these are covered in my post of how to run faster, or in my training plans.
If, on the contrary, the purpose of your run is to get some fresh air, enjoy the day, relax, and have fun running with friends, you have to know that, no matter what you do, you should run at an easy conversational pace, at which your heart rate is never above 150 beats per minute.
“What is an easy pace?” You may wonder. I would say somewhere around 7 min/km (11 min/mile) or slower, but no faster than 6:30 min/km (10:30 min/mile). “Woo that’s very slow, I can run faster!” That may probably be your reaction. That’s ok, but it is not important when you are new to running, or back to running after a long break.
“What is important then?” When you are new to running, what matters is that with every run you: improve cardiovascular fitness, gain muscle and body strength, and become efficient at fat burning. You will achieve these by running at an easy pace. Let me explain you why.
Cardiovascular fitness refers to a person’s ability to deliver oxygen to the working muscles. If you run slowly, easy and relax, you can run for longer and more frequently (because you will need less time to recover from the previous workout), thus you will be further stimulating your body, particularly your heart and muscles involved in respiration. Many physiological changes begin to occur as your body adapts to the running stimulus. For example, capillaries, the tiny blood vessels that supply the air sacs deep in your lungs, increase in size and number, as well as the mitochondria, the membrane-bound organelle in your muscle cells that produce energy.
When you are running, you are applying stress to your body, which in turn adapts accordingly. If you run too fast, you may apply too much stress for your body to handle, and your joints, knees, or legs muscles, may break down, resulting in injuries. To void this, you have to begin easy and gain strength gradually. So that when you start running faster, later in your running journey, your body is strong enough to handle the stress.
The final important aspect of regular running, is that your body becomes more efficient at fat burning. Fat burning refers to our bodies’ ability to burn fat and use it as fuel while we exercise, a process usually called ketosis. Fat is made up of cells in our body that are used for storing energy. Hormones regulating our blood sugar levels ignite fat cells, making them release macromolecules made of glycerol and fatty acid chains. These macromolecules enter the bloodstream, the liver snatches up the glycerol and the fatty acid move to the muscles. Inside the muscle and liver cells, the mitochondrias break the fat macromolecules, producing heat, water, carbon dioxide and adenosine triphosphate, which hauls potential energy in its molecular bonds. The water exits our bodies as sweat and urine, and we exhale the carbon dioxide.
What’s important for us to know, is that this fat burning process requires oxygen. However, if we are running too fast, oxygen is not largely available in our body to burn fat, all is send to the muscles. What our body then does is to use the glycogen in our bloodstream as energy source. When we eat, the glucose and other sugars are taken from the carbohydrates. The liver stores the glucose in the form of glycogen and releases it into the bloodstream. Note that we do not keep large amounts of glycogen, no matter what we eat, if we run out of it, our body will go into a state of sudden fatigue that will prevent us from even moving! Marathoners usually call this bonking or hitting the wall.
So yes, if you want to improve cardiovascular fitness, lose weight and get stronger, you need to run easy, at a comfortable pace. You will be getting better at running! I hope this post already convinced you why. 🙂
Happy running!
Camila