Why Do Cardio?

David Nuckols of GT Fitness recently asked (mainly to get people discussing) why we do cardio. I had a short answer and a long answer, the short answer for why I do cardio is simple.


I like to run.


The long answer gets tricky, I could go on and list all the benefits of cardiovascular exercise, or talk about how cardio and strength training make a great one, two punch combination for improving health. I could go on at length about why I'm against strength training with no cardio, (and against cardio with no strength training). I could talk about what a great system David has at GT Fitness of making strength and cardio a single hybrid workout. I could brag on my own KB500 kickboxing fitness class and how we combine strength training and cardio training there to improve fitness, burn fat, and build muscle.


Instead, I want to talk about why I do cardio.


I am a runner, I have become a distance runner and am training for my first ultramarathon. At 50K it is just barely an ultramarathon, but it is indeed an ultra. I have just reached my peak of training for this race, and to give an idea of how much cardio I sometimes do in a week I'd like to compare it with the recommended dose of cardiovascular exercise.


It is said that we should be getting 150 minutes of moderate cardio per week. Sunday I got 370 minutes. My February cardio has March covered, and probably April too.


The thing is, from a health perspective, those extra hours per week of cardio aren't really doing much to improve my health over that first 150 minutes. If you go from 0 minutes of cardio and add a little so that you get 30 minutes per week you get a little benefit. If you go from 0 and add a lot to get 150 minutes, you get a lot of benefit, but thanks to the law of diminishing returns, once you go past that, you have to do a lot more to get a little more benefit to your health.


The only reason for me to do that much running is that I like it.


I like the challenge of pushing my body, carefully, gradually month by month, to achieve things I didn't think I could. I once believed I couldn't run even a mile. Then I ran a 5K, Half Marathon, Triathlons, and now 50K is two weeks away.


I like going out the door and hitting the road on a sunny day, running between fields of corn in the countryside, watching birds of prey soaring on rising currents of warm air, spotting rabbits as they duck for cover in the fields, listening to the sounds of nature around me and the sound of my breath and heartbeat as I stride down the road for hours at a time.


I like going up to Mammoth Cave and running the trails, jitterbugging my feet around rocks and roots, hopping streams, crawling over fallen trees, jogging within 15 feet of whitetail deer before the leap away from the trail into the cover of the woods, climbing up, up, up to a ridge top overlooking the Green River or down, down, down to see a karst spring trickling out of the limestone.


I do cardio because I like it.


It seems that some people see cardio as a punishment for their transgressions.


"I have to go get on the elliptical because I broke down and had three donuts this morning."


"We went out to eat last night, so I better go burn it off on the treadmill."


For me exercise is different, I exercise because I like what I am doing, my kung fu workouts are fun, my runs are fun, challenging and restorative. I admit that I do my strength training primarily to support my running, I don't usually find strength training fun, but it helps me keep the running fun by improving how well I run, and helping me to avoid injury.


Find fun in your workout. Then instead of thinking, "I have to workout tonight," you'll be thinking, "I can't wait to go workout tonight."

Functional? Really?

Sometimes I am convinced that people create exercises solely to sell new equipment. 

For example:

That exercise is functional if you are at sea, on a raft, after losing one of your legs battling pirates, loading cannonballs into a cannon. 

Too Skinny On Biggest Loser?

The problem with weight loss competition:

If you have reached your ideal weight with a week left to go, and everyone else is still ten or twenty pounds overweight, how do you win the competition?

Dehydration, starvation, laxatives?

I Was Never Really Lost. . .

For a brief few days, the winds had changed. The biting cold had been blown back to its northern home where it crouched, waiting for another chance to head south and punish those of us accustomed to milder weather. I took advantage of this respite from the cold to head out for my long run on the trails at Mammoth Cave National Park. I gathered up my supplies, running for hours requires fuel, so I filled my water flasks with Gatorade and stuffed some energy chews, which you may just as well call candy, in the pocket on the back of my fuel belt. I drove out to Mammoth Cave, took the ferry across the river and parked at the trail head ready to start my run. 

Whatever the goal, planning is important. If you are planning on taking charge of your health by losing weight, it is important to start by planning and preparing. I would never have been able to run well over 20 miles that day if I had not prepared what I would need ahead of time. Your journey to a new fit, healthy you starts at the grocery store. Plan your shopping and buy what you need to prepare healthy meals at home, including meals you can take to work. Having what you need ahead of time will prevent you from resorting to junk food snacks and fast food lunches. 

The trail grew gradually wilder as I ran. At the parking area I crossed the white painted lines of the crosswalk, stepped onto the gray gravel of the start of the trail which gradually gave way to dirt well hardened by many footsteps. Soon the leaves that had fallen all winter obscured the trail so that there were times I had to stop an search for a faint line of flatness in the leaves and hopefully a blue blaze on one of the trees. As I approached the crossing of this trail with another trail I checked my watch. Since I knew the mileage of that section of trail, it was easy to calculate that I was nailing a ten minute per mile pace, perfect for this easy paced long run. 

Many times when you start, there is a time when your eating habits and workouts just click into place. Everything goes smoothly and there is continuous progress to your goal. When it is going smoothly it is so motivating and you might feel unstoppable. Use that momentum to your advantage, but keep in mind it might not always be a smooth ride. 

At several places on the trail I had to step, leap, climb across small streams. At some of these the spring from which the stream escaped from underground was visible. 

At one, I could even see a cave entrance. Tempting. 

I crossed the stream that slinked its way out of the cave, scanned ahead to find the trail and continued. The trail was gradually becoming more and more obscured by leaves. 

Left? Right?

Seriously, which way. 

At his point I had been running for over an hour. I grabbed my map and got a rough idea how far I had gone if I were still running at about 10 minutes per mile. I decided that I was at the point of the map where the trail turned about 170 degrees and continued. I turned, scanned for the slightly flattened line in the leaves, saw it and a blue blaze, turned, and ran. At times, my light jacket felt too warm, but with the gray overcast sky and the strong winds blowing I was glad to have it. I ran down the trail, leaves crunching with each step. I leapt over some fallen trees and scrambled under others. I saw another cave spring ahead and decided to stop for another picture. 

Wait a minute. That picture looks familiar. 

Sometimes, you will experience setbacks. Instead of losing two pounds one week you may discover you've gained three. Your schedule one week may have been very busy resulting in one too many fast food stops. You might have given in to the craving for some chips or ice cream. 

Setbacks happen. When they do, the important thing is what you do next. Stop, regroup, get back on track, adjust your plans. Do whatever you need to start making progress again. 

It turns out that after I had run for an hour I made the reasonable mistake of miscalculating that 170 degree turn and made a 180 degree turn. I decided to head back to the point where the two trails crossed and reassess the rest of my running route to be sure I got the mileage I wanted. Unfortunately there were some trail closures, so I had to do quite a bit of replanning. I did see some awesome scenes along the way. 

I saw deer and turkey, and I found some very muddy trails. 

The last eight miles or so were so muddy that It seemed to take three steps to make one step of forward progress. The mud grabbed my feet trying to hold me in place, the trail slid out from beneath me trying to drag me down, it was a struggle to move. Then I wound up on a connector trail when I should have been on my return loop.   

Then I saw it. Through the woods, I saw the roadway. 

I snuck through the growth knowing that going this way would be all but impossible in a few months. I got on the roadway and jogged, walked, ran, and walked some more the last few miles back to my car. It was a harder day than I anticipated, but I did what I had to do and met my goal. I actually ran an extra mile or two over the 22 I had planned. 

Achieving your weight loss or fitness goals won't always go smoothly, but if you persevere, you can find a way. If you recognize the importance of a healthy lifestyle and set your mind to it, you can find a way. It may not be the path you expected, it might be very difficult, but with planning, execution, and perseverance you can do it.  

So what are you waiting for?

Torture. Because I Like It.

The wind was hitting like a sledgehammer, relentlessly pounding me as I ran headlong against it. With each step I wondered if I was actually moving forward or if the wind slamming me backwards was overcoming all my forward progress, but I kept on. Finally, I anticipated some relief as I turned on to an even smaller side road out in the country. Rather than relief, the wind was now beating at me from the side, causing me to lean into it as I ran. At least it was a warm day.


Long distance running out alone in the country surrounded by farm houses and winter emptied fields yesterday was just one day of many of my training for the Fall Creek Falls 50K Trail Race. It has been a long, hard winter of training. Living in Kentucky I am fortunate to have many warm days in the winter, and even the cold days don't compare to the ones people are facing farther north. Still, the hundreds of miles of training behind me so far leading up to this race and the hundreds still to go have required the tenacity of a pit bull.


There have been many days that I did not want to get up and go for a run that day. There have been times that I adjusted my weekly mileage down for a break, or skipped a day for some extra rest. There have been days that were supposed to be a hard workout day, that I opted for an easy workout day instead. Even with those, I still keep pushing forward, training in the face of those sledgehammer winds.


Training for this race, for me, is partially for my health. Any fitness expert would say, that the number of miles I am doing per week is beyond that needed for health. So there must be other reasons. One is that I just want to see what I am capable of, I want to test my limits, I want to go further, run faster, train harder, and all that. Another is that I am having fun doing it. Even on the days that it is cold, and windy, days on which the wind rips at my clothes and attempts to slice through the armor of my down jacket, I am having fun doing it.


There is no heroic backstory of being overweight and running from the demons of ridicule. There is no running to overcome addiction. There is no running to prove something to my father, and only a little bit of running as a reprieve from the grief of losing my mother.


So my story is not as dramatic as some others.


I just like to run.


I set goals. I set hard, lofty, distant goals, and head towards them one running stride at a time. On cold days and hot days. Lathered in sunscreen sometimes, or wearing a headlamp to see by others. Sometimes I run in the morning while my wife is still asleep, or I run while she is at work, or I get my run done as early as I can so she can get her run in too.


Training for this race is by far the hardest thing I've ever done. Running 50, 54, then 60 miles in a week is time consuming, mind consuming, and energy consuming, but I keep pushing forward to meet my goals.


At times it feels selfish, so I hope that what I am doing inspires my daughter to believe, to know that she can accomplish big things if she tackles them one step at a time. I hope that my fitness clients can see by my example that if they make a plan and stick to it they can lose 50, 60, 100 pounds, or run their first 5K or marathon.


At the heart of it though, my motivation is not that noble, I just like to run.

Fear of Fat Marketing

I am mad. 

The fitness marketing commercials have gone beyond selling to fears people have and have started creating fear where there should be none. 

The "T25" commercial came on with people talking about flattening their tummies and thinning their thighs and on and on. The next day my beautiful 6 year old girl told me she wanted to lose some fat. 

This is a girl who ran a 42:40 5K at age 5. This is a girl who at four years old biked 5 miles to Chaney's Dairy Barn for an ice cream treat. This is a girl who runs around all day, likes to row on the rowing machine at the gym, and likes to swing kettlebells. 

This one commercial and suddenly she thinks she needs to lose some fat. 

Why do they insist on selling fitness this way?

Probably because it works. We live in a society that is obsessed with image and appearance. The world around us tells us we are less than if we are not tall enough, muscular enough, skinny enough, tanned enough. . .

Commercials for jeans reduce women to nothing but their hips. Clothes aren't sold on how they function, but on how they make your butt look. 

The TV tells me I need a bigger chest and bigger biceps. It tells me I need fancier clothes, and that three months later those will no longer be fashionable enough. 

It will only stop if we stop buying what they are selling. 

Yes, fitness is important and you should be doing something to take care of the amazing human body you are in. Being strong and having good cardio is awesome, but I beg you, for your own sake and the sake of all our little girls, I beg you to be outraged at every ad and article that promises a sexy body, a perfect butt or a "beach body." Turn away from that style of marketing and focus your fitness on what your body can do and how your body feels instead of how some guy on TV tells you your body should look. 

I am disgusted. 

Trail Running Observations

Trail running is awesome. 

The next person to tell me that natural surfaces are easier on the body is invited to come trail running with me. 

Trails that are shared with horses are often difficult to run on. 

They are even harder to run on when frozen. 

Worse than that is when they are half frozen. 

Wet sandstone is less slippery than wet limestone. 

Sandstone and limestone are  equally slippery when covered with a sheet of ice. 

Picking your way on a technical trail can be fun. 

Bombing down a non-technical trail is also fun. 

Discovering that the non-technical trail you  are bombing down abruptly becomes technical is not so fun. 

Ankle deep oak leaves are very good at obscuring trails. 

Running half the trail in X amount of time does not mean you will cover the second half in the same time.