Got my testosterone dipping today and because I am back on increasing the run mileage weekly. Been doing either 10km or 21km runs weekly for many months now since I went on focusing for AI Engineering training, building stuffs, and getting back to my engineering career. Yesterdays run was the second in less than a week interval so body is adjusting.
In terms of run trainings, there are different kinds of training depending on the nature or requirements for the run. Basically, using speed on running as the core training pace is for short distance running. Running slow as the core pace is for long distance runs. The former uses both fats and sugar as fuel but mainly sugar. The latter uses both fuel but mainly fats.
Fast runs are requiring explosive force and will last for a very short time. Around 100m sprints to 5km commonly and also less than 10km are considered short distance running. Tactically, these are great for quickly covering ground in a short amount of time during a firefight.
Slow runs are for long distance, endurance is the name of the game. Best for long forced marches with heavy load carry, and for long reconnaissance patrols.
There are nuances specially in training for running long distances. While fat is the main fuel, sugar gets depleted fast too due to the longer time of burning the sugar fuel. Also, the mitochondria is developed during this anaerobic training which is the fundamental unit for endurance. Mitochondria is the secret for endurance and long distance running but is easily damaged by free radicals from air pollution, smoking, and alcohol.
There is a saying in the long distance running circles, if you wanna run strong and fast on long distance runs, run slow. Hence I been giving importance on long-slow-distance running. Back in the army, a lot of our runs are long-slow-distance, except for the 3.2km run during the quarterly physical fitness test.
But long distance running is not only slow running during training. It also involves speed work hence the need for cross training with sprints. Incorporation of a variable speed run like the fartlek is also a good training method. VO2 Max is another aspect in long distance running.
The ideal training for me, the optimized one is a 2x a week 21km run on long-slow-distance, 1x a week fartlek on 10km, and a one day a week 8x 100m sprints.
In the meantime, I will be focusing on my studies today. Will do the solid state chemistry.
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