Start slow, Go long, Be patient

A number of interesting questions have come up lately, based on previous articles. One runner noted that the schedule I had written, preparing runners for February's Half Marathon was "very easy". Perhaps "too easy?" he wondered.

Not at all. While it is a tremendous achievement to run 13.1 miles, the human body is remarkably good at developing the physical ability to do so with the right training.

Remember, our bodies are designed to be active, it is modern life that has made us become sedentary. It is only this generation which has become used to driving everywhere and sitting all day in offices, our grandparents' and parents' lifestyles were much more physically demanding.

And the right training is just as I offered - a slow gradual increase in the distance/time you can comfortably run. Okay, let's get one thing clear, no-one is going to actually show up and win the race on such a schedule, but that was not the point.

The point was simply to make it possible for more people to achieve something a bit special and complete next month's half marathon. Start slow. Go long. Be patient. And the results will come.

Another question was about the dietary advice; don't we need carbohydrate to run? Yes, we do, but we also burn fat as fuel too, not only carbohydrate.

And pound for pound, fat provides more energy. When you run a half marathon, or full marathon, your body relies on getting a large percentage of its fuel from fat.

If this did not happen, then you would struggle to reach the finish-line, because our bodies cannot store enough carbohydrate to fuel us for the whole distance.

So we need this fuel mix of carbohydrate and fat. Too many magazines concentrate too much on telling you how much carbohydrate to eat, without telling you that you must eat and store sufficient fat also.

It is not enough to have abundant body fat around your waist, you need to have it available within your muscle cell for ready use.

I offered a few sources that I had learned worked well - like peanuts, cheese, cream, as well as the usually recommended olive oil.

A third point that came up concerned someone who trained with a heart rate monitor. He had noticed that even though his pace remained the same, his heart rate would slowly rise over the course of a run. He asked why this was so.

This slow rise in heart rate has been termed "cardiac drift" by sports physiologists.

What is actually happening here is that as you begin exercising, most of your blood is pumped to your running muscles (to supply oxygen from your lungs).

However, the breakdown of fuel to energy also causes heat which must be got rid of. To deal with this, some of the blood flow is diverted to just under your skin which may lead to a rise in sweat rate as the body attempts to get rid of the (excess) heat.

So, if you like, your heart is now performing two functions; supplying your muscles with oxygen and dissipating unwanted heat. This leads to a rise in heart rate.

Cardiac drift is actually not much of a concern as runners become better trained, since they will then tend to sweat much less as their bodies become more efficient at converting fuel into energy.