Keto Man, haha. All you're missing is a cape!

I'd have to agree with your assessment of things, Ken. Conditions may not have been quite as ideal this year, but you've still made a relative improvement on previous years, so I'd be happy with that. Well done!

Sorry Grav, I take my superhero advice from Edna Mode... No Capes! But you know that we only ever wanted to be wall flowers anyway - blending in like everybody else. I came in mid-pack for this 10K... totally normal. Nice to be just your average Joe.


So this year's 10K is done. I trained well. I'm still a bit heavy, but my legs are quite fit. I had no sore muscles or joints in the hours and days following the event. My sciatic nerve pain is a thing of the past. I haven't had a twinge of that in a couple of years. Even my lower back, which does still get a dull ache from time to time, was not any worse for wear after pounding the pavement for 6.2 miles. Except for the overheating part it was just another workout.

After the previous 2 10Ks my "training" came to an end. My exercise routine reverted back to daily walking until the following winter when I felt the need to start training for the next spring 10K. I'd like to change that routine this year; however, cardio is not my favorite thing. I enjoy walking way more than pushing the limits and sweating like a pig. So what do I do? The plan for this year is to keep up the cardio at least once or twice a week. But rather than train hard, shooting for the 'red zone' with the cardio workouts, I'll dial it down and work out in the lower end of the cardio heart rate spectrum. I referred to this article a few posts back...

Want Speed? Slow Down!

My workout plan borrows the basic premise of this technique... that working out at a less intense cardio level will ultimately result in better fitness and better performance. It is a long term process, though. I've got to make this part of my regular routine for it to work. I think that it's worth a try. I keep saying that I want to do a 10K in under an hour. If I dedicate an entire year to it, perhaps I can make it happen. Who knows? Maybe I'll come to enjoy cardio if I am not pushing the limits. In any case, if I keep up some cardio, then I won't lose any ground before next year's 10K.

After the past 3 months getting ready for this last 10K I'm feeling pretty darn fit. Why stop now and start over again next winter? I may as well keep working and be extra fit by next year. Today was day 1 training for next year's 10K. I'm going to adopt concepts from the MAF method described in the "Want Speed? Slow Down!" link from my previous post. I won't be training for a marathon. My goal for the next year is to work 2 or 3 low intensity cardio sessions into my exercise regimen each week. I have machines available in my neighborhood gym and at the Y that offer the ability to check my heart rate. For outside jogging I'm going to need to buy a heart rate monitor.

The whole point of this MAF technique is to workout to a targeted heart rate zone. According to the formula provided my zone is 115 to 125 beats per minute. No more pushing it to be in the red zone of 80% max heart rate. The goal now is to cardio easy. If the MAF program works, then over time I should have to pick up the pace to stay within my MAF heart rate zone. I did my first session tonight on the elliptical.

Machine: Elliptical
Duration: 45 minutes
Distance: 3.2
Effort: Basic (flat) setting (level 1) for 45 easy minutes.
Speed: 4.5 to 5.0 MPH
HR: 117 to 125.

This was a very enjoyable workout. I still worked up a good sweat. I found myself wanting to go harder once I was warmed up, but anything over 5 mph pushed my HR too high. I actually had to slow down to 4.5 MPH to keep my HR in the zone until the end. It was hard to go slow. I felt like I was loafing. This is only day 1. I've got to commit to the method long term to find out if it really works.

In addition to this regimen, I may add periodic High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) sessions into my routine at the track. Just 6 to 8 100 yard sprints to remind my legs what it is like to really run.

Well done!!!


With race horses, they are worked almost every day. Race every few weeks. It is cyclical. Basic workouts that increase abilites, then race, then back off and work up again. THey are not kept at peak condition all year round but do continue training all year......

I bought a new toy and had my first chance to play with it today. I'm now sporting the Garmin Vivoactive HR. I'd looked at these some time ago when I was looking for a replacement activity tracker, but I just couldn't justify spending $250 on it. With my new "low zone" aerobic workouts I needed a solution for tracking my heart rate. Good timing. BJs had the Vivoactive HR for $90 off of list. It had good reviews, so I bought myself an early birthday present.

Playing with it today I did some walking, some jogging, and a stint on the elliptical. It is sort of a limited function smartwatch, too - with lots of apps and widgets available to customize the device. The heart rate feature, which measures from the skin on my wrist, seems to work OK. The device also automatically sensed that I did 40 minutes on the elliptical and recorded it. Pretty cool. I always love a new gadget. This one may not look all that attractive, but it looks to fit the bill for what I was looking for. Plus it is just a darn cool new toy.

Jogged 1 mile trying to keep the HR under 125. Fast walking only got my HR up to around 95. Barely jogging bumps it up to 125+ real fast. My target HR zone is 115 to 125. I'm going to have to work on my slow jogging skills.

Machine: Elliptical
Duration: 40 minutes
Distance: 2.9
Effort: Basic (flat) setting (level 1) for 40 easy minutes.
Speed: 4.3 to 4.6 MPH
HR: 111 to 120.

I'm finding barely aerobic workouts very enjoyable. I'm going to like this. Who knows? I just might stick to it.

Enjoy your new gadget. You should be able to get some good data with it.

My gym peddles the My Zone belt http://myzone.org They replaced half the TVs with monitors that show people’s efforts. Another non-selling point for me. I just use my Apple Watch and that seems to be enough to monitor my time, cals burned, and also time intervals.

That looks like the opposite of what I'm doing. You get more MEP points for your workout the more you kill yourself working to the max. My MAF method targets consistency in the easy zone. With my plan I'd be the biggest wimp in your gym, but if this MAF concept is right I'll get more fit as the MEP go-getters torcher themselves. This is going to be a long N=1 experiment -- all year if I manage to keep it up. I'll be curious to find out who is right. This fun new gadget combined with easier workouts should help make it happen.

I did my 5 mile path through my neighborhood this morning carrying all three fitness devices that I have. I had my smartphone with me and the Garmin Vivofit 3 strapped to one wrist, with the Garmin Vivoactive HR on the other. I wanted to see how they compared.

The Vivoactive HR GPS uses both US and Russian satellites and is supposed to be more accurate. My smartphone GPS varies widely from one day to the next and gets even worse when I'm on a path through the forest. The same 5 mile path I walk can be as much as half of a mile off from one day to the next. On the past 2 10K runs my phone had not even registered that I'd traveled 6 miles by the time I crossed the finish line at 6.2 miles. The good news today was that my new gadget was right on the money with the 5 mile distance. My smart phone made me walk another minute to finish 5 miles. Step count on all three devices was about the same.

It was fun tracking my heartrate on this walk. There are a couple of steeper hills on my route, but frankly, I'd underestimated how hilly the entire distance is. Most of the walk is not on flat ground. There are long gentle slopes going down and then back up again. I was surprised to see how much of a difference they made in my heartrate. I walked for the entire distance today taking longer strides than normal and pushing my usual pace to a fast walk just short of speed walking. On the steep hills my HR got up to 130. On the gentle uphill slopes it stayed in the 110 to 115 range. On the downhill slopes my HR dropped down to around 100. Walking indoors yesterday I wasn't getting my HR above 100 for the entire walk. So it appears that walking my hilly neighborhood is a more effective workout.

My target HR zone is 115 to 125. Staying in that zone is going to be tough since jogging puts me over and walking doesn't get me that high. So I might have to take advantage of what I learned today and do a hybrid walk/jog through my neighborhood to find consistency in my target HR zone. Slow jogging the downhill slopes and fast walking the rest might be the easiest way to accomplish an MAF workout of long duration. The school track and the indoor walking track at the Y are both flat surfaces. I might be able to figure out how to jog slow enough to stay in my MAF zone. Now that I've got my new HR gadget, I'm sure that I'll be testing that in the coming days.

Last summer I started getting up with the early morning sun to do some walking before work. This year I'm considering going to the gym instead. It is on the way to work. The weather is getting nicer. I have a bunch more work to do in my house. Like last summer, the plan is to workout early and work on the house evenings and weekends. Last year I didn't track my food and gained weight in spite of getting 20k steps in each day. I won't make that mistake again.

Me, too. That is why I don’t have one. I am not convinced that it is the best way to go. Plus my training program is not quite so cardio based.

That’s great your device is more accurate. The Hubs and I were out in the open space/green preserve north of our house. I was trying to track out some distances on my phone, but it was all wonky with no physical address or paved roads.

I'm loving my new fitness tracker with a HR monitor. I've downloaded a few apps to it and set up a custom workout with HR zones. I also found an app for my cell phone that will display the broadcast of my HR so when I'm on a treadmill, elliptical or other machine I can just glance at my phone in front of me to check my HR. I'm finding my new tracker will count more steps in a day as well. With GPS it can sense when I'm moving. My old fitness tracker needed to detect a pattern of walking before it would count anything. I've worn both devices today and the Garmin Vivoactive HR shows 600 more steps than the Vivofit 3.

I've done some experimenting the past 2 days with some short MAF workouts (around 40 minutes each). Yesterday I walked/slow jogged the inside track at the Y. Walking fast I can't get my HR above 100. Slow jogging I can't keep the HR below 130. My target HR range is 110 to 125. The only way I was able to find that range was to alternate slow jogging 50 to 100 yards then speed walk for about the same distance. That actually worked fairly well. But I definitely looked like the biggest wimp in the gym. I didn't even work up a good sweat.

Last night I did some reading about the MAF technique from those who have done it. It sounds like this trouble that I'm having -- having to jog really, really slow to stay in the MAF zone -- is common when just starting out. Soon I will graduate to a more comfortable jogging speed, or so they say. I read one woman's blog post about this where she posted her improved results for the past few marathons that she'd run. She was a big advocate for this technique. I hope it works for me.

Tonight I did a walk/jog through the neighborhood. I had the same issue as I did with the indoor workout at the Y. I had to walk, jog, walk, jog to stay in the zone. The custom app that I created shows me a nice graph at the end of the workout showing the percentage of time that I spent in my desired zone. I did fairly well staying where I needed to be. The only difference tonight was that I did sweat. It was warm outside and a bit humid.

So the past few days I have just been playing around and experimenting with my new gadget. A true MAF workout is a light workout of an extended duration. 30 to 40 minutes is not enough. To get the desired effect I'll need to do a couple of 1 hour+ workouts per week. That shouldn't be a problem. I regularly walk that much time (or more) multiple times per week. Now I will just be working a little harder.

A couple of observations:

With this HR monitor strapped on I've learned that my daily walking for the past year or two has been quite leisurely and not much of a workout. When I walk my usual 3.3 to 3.5 MPH pace my HR is only around 80-90 BPM. Having this HR monitor pushes me to work a little harder at keeping up the pace. When I walk faster (3.7 - 3.9 MPH) I can get my HR up into the low cardio zone of 95+.

Since I did my 10K I've ceased hard cardio workouts. Those hard workouts the prior few months really did make me more hungry. I had trouble eating within limits each day and I haven't lost any weight for months. These light MAF workouts don't seem to affect my hunger nearly as much. I've eaten at a nice calorie deficit for the past few days without much trouble. Maybe working out exclusively in the 'fat burning zone' is exactly what I need to be doing to jumpstart the weight loss again.

Speed walked on a chilly evening for 50 minutes. For reasons unknown, today speed walking was enough for me to stay in my MAF cardio zone. I stayed within a few BPM of 120 for all but 2 minutes of this walk.

I've had a nasty chest cold the past week. It peaked a few days ago, but the nagging cough lingered on until today. I felt better this morning. Finally, I had the opportunity to get in a serious MAF session. Today was a beautiful day for a long workout. I enjoyed it.

Time: 2 hours 20 minutes
Distance: 9 miles
Average HR: 122 (MAF Target zone is 115 to 125)

Observations: For the first mile or two it was difficult to keep my HR consistently within my MAF zone of 115 to 125. Speed walking put me into the 105 to 110 range. Even slow jogging overshot my target zone by 10 or more BPM. I spent those warmup miles passing up and down through my MAF zone, but never landing there for long. Eventually I found a pattern of speed walking and very short stints of jogging that seemed to work. After mile 2 I was staying in the zone most of the time.

As stated in the MAF material that I read, the pace required to stay in the appropriate HR will slow down over time on a long workout. It worked out that way for me today.

I did the first 2 miles at 4.1 mph
The next two miles came in at 4.0 mph
Miles 5 and 6 clocked in at 3.9 mph
The last few miles dropped to 3.8 mph

For the first half of this workout I had to do frequent stints of slow jogging to keep my HR up. The 2nd half was 99% speed walking with almost no jogging required at all. For the last few miles I wasn't even pushing the speed walking all that hard and my HR stayed firmly planted in the 120 to 125 range.

This new plan of using a HR monitor to focus on a specific low cardio HR zone is going to be an interesting experiment. I had fun today. I enjoyed the workout. I feel great - with a nice endorphin buzz right now. Today was sort of my baseline. I look forward to the day that I can maintain a slow jog to stay in my zone. If this MAF thing works for me, it should happen within the next month or two.

When I started using my Garmin step counter/fitness tracker a few years ago it didn't take long before this device that I had strapped on my wrist turned into a pushy little nag. It beeped at me when I hadn't moved in a while. It set step goals each day that it wanted me to achieve. There were times when I'd be marching around the house before bed so as not to let my Garmin fitness tracker down. It actually started to bother me there for a while. Was I getting OCD about my step count? Did my fitness tracker have an unhealthy control over my life? Nah. I eventually chilled out about it. I now see it as a friendly little reminder to keep moving. That's a good thing.

My new device with a heart rate monitor is starting to have an influence on my behavior as well. It's not just pushing me to move. It's pushing me to move faster (but not too fast). That too is a good thing. I'm now getting more benefit out of the time that I spend walking. I'm getting more bang for the buck. It seems that every time I go out for a walk I want to push the speed into my MAF zone. I did it on a 45 minute walk yesterday. Today it was cool on my lunch hour, so I even pushed the pace on my lunchtime walk and kept my HR at or near 115 the whole time. I didn't sweat too much. I'm certain that this little extra push from my Garmin Vivoactive HR will pay dividends over time.

I don't want to fill up this log with endless daily walking entries. The normal, everyday stuff I'll just track in the walking challenge thread even if it is a legitimate MAF workout. I want to reserve this log for the big stuff (like my last post). The normal daily workouts are an important part of my new life, but I also want to do a serious workout at least a couple of times per month. Keeping this log free from the little stuff will better help me better keep track of when another big workout is due.

Machine: Elliptical
Duration: 60 minutes
Distance: 4.5
Effort: Basic (flat) setting (level 2) .
Speed: 4.5 to 4.7 MPH
HR: 117 to 125, 122 average

I managed to stay in my MAF zone for 98% of this workout. I was locked in on 120 to 125 pretty much all the way

While trying to figure out if upper body weight lifting will be counter productive with my MAF training I ran across a good, written in layman's terms, article about building a strong cardio base. Here is the link and a snippet from the article.



By this standard I've got a lot of work to do on my aerobic function. The time for my best mile on last Saturday's MAF workout was just under 15 minutes. I've read several articles now that talk about the benefits of building your purely aerobic base -- the true 'fat burning" zone. It appears to be a thing; and I think I'm on the right track by adopting this training method. Like any of my N=1 experiments, I'll be curious to know how effective it FOR ME. I am nearly 55 years old and not built like a runner. 7 minute miles might be out of the question. But surely I can improve upon my 15 minute mile and stay in the MAF zone. That's the plan.

"Upon completion of your one-mile run or walk, review your time. If you can run the mile in seven minutes you've got a well-trained aerobic system. If your mile time was 13 minutes, your aerobic energy-system is poor."

Thats a really neat idea. I was clearing out a bunch of stuff that I was going to post on craigs list and I have an old Garmin Forerunner 305 that's never even been charged up (doing that now) I'm going to go measure out a mile sort of flat course and see where I'm at. Im really curious. I don't run or walk for exercise but do plenty of low intensity activity for long periods of time. Hmmm.

I'm following your log here and will keep tabs on your MAP training and any insight.

Thanks for the interesting ideas and testing yourself Ken!