Breathing through a straw... my nose...

Finding topics like Nose Breathing on the Barefoot Running Google site is like finding gold in a Colorado mountain stream... you may have to dig through a lot of pretty, pretty neat, pretty interesting, pretty big pile... and then Wham!!! It is hard for me to keep up reading, but worth it! (Member Harry's stuff about holding your arms slightly forward while running downhill fixed my foot slapping in 1 run! Woo Hoo!)

I have been working on nose breathing since I was a kid in college (sorry you youngsters, I am turning 61 next month!) I fought yearly bronchitis, tickling throat for months, stuffy nose! I started treating the stuffy nose with meds, but that just bothered me... didn't seem right... too bad I didn't get the same insight about shoes way back then! (I have always gone barefoot a lot.)((Will save my Bronchitis Busting Coughing exercise for another post.))

I learned to push through the panic I would have with the stuffy nose and amazingly, my body would manage to open a nostril... amazing... duh. They would alternate, which I thought was odd, but found out later is natural. When I really work hard I sometimes open my mouth, but usually I breath through my nose. Since I started running 4 months ago, I have been breaking the faith... of course you have to mouth breath to run! But, I do not get out of breath when I run, and I am comfortable nose breathing, so why not? A later group thread and the original that Harry started encouraged me to try it. I did my 4 miler this evening nose breathing almost the whole way... yep, caught myself a few times! I was comfortable, not out of breath, and felt strong.  Very cool!

This all goes along with a web sight that I found some-how a few years ago about how to breath! Seems odd to have to learn... like running bare! I searched and searched for the site tonight and almost gave up. But, I think I found it. It seems to be more commercial now with not so many gems lying around to take for free - ya'know? That's OK.  If I like what I find I should be willing to support the source. Here is a link to a page of articles. Some are sort of just directing you to paid materials, but you have to sift the sand to find the gold... remember?
http://www.breathing.com/articles/Default.htm    
Hard to find? Just too obvious I guess...

Here is the short story version...
- Do Not breath high and shallow - sounds just like the what the group said! Rather, there is about a 30/70 split of chest/belly breathing.
- Same info as on the group about the autonomic/sympathetic/parasympathetic systems.
- Slow down! - just like the group! We breath too much and end up with too little O2 at the cells!
- Rest mid breath... I think of it as giving the air time to work. Breath out 1,2, 3, rest 4, 5, 6, 7 in 8, 9, 10. Notice how much time is spent in-hale compared to out+rest? About the same 30/70 ratio... hummm...
(Yes, you rest on the out, not on the in... Healthy Pattern)

It feels great and you start to breath very slowly. (Careful, you can get dizzy! From MORE O2 than you are used to!) Sometimes at rest I will breath 4 - 5 times a minute! (Resting heart rate is about 55) By allowing time to fully exhale, the new air has somewhere to go - see? They say our max lung capacity is in our 20s and we loose 20% per year! Yikes! This kind of breathing expands that back out. I have improved a lot, but I still need to work on it! Loosing more weight will give more room too! btw...Asthma sufferers may be helped a lot... sometimes in the panic they are afraid to exhale, so guess what... nowhere for new air to go... more panic! You must Exhale to breath!

Give it a try and let me know how you do!

Barely Running

Barely Running did a 10 min mile!

Ok, I lied... but I did run at a sub 10 min mile pace for .1 mile!  That is good enough for me right now!  WooHoo!  You are probably wondering how I went from not being able to break the 16 min mile barrier, to a 10 min mile pace...

I read email digests from the Google group
Minimalist Runner - Barefoot, Huaraches, FiveFingers at http://groups.google.com/group/huaraches/topics.  Many of the runners in that group talk about interval training for speed.  In my case, I have not run intervals for... what... 42 years???  So, I just ignore those posts.  However, as the miles role along and my mile pace refuses to go below 16 min, I pay more attention.  I think it is a mental thing with me.  I am pretty terrified of blowing myself out on a run and having a difficult time recovering to get home.  Sort of silly considering that I am never more than a mile from home with my current routs!

So, I decided to remove all fear barriers and measure a .1 mile interval track right by my house.  The strategy was to run a few easy, stretchy, warm up intervals then kick it up a notch or to and see how it went.  Whoa!  My first interval was a slightly downhill 13.33 min mile pace!  I was blown away, but not blown out!  It felt fine!  I had promised myself that I would not sacrifice my barefoot form for speed.  That is really important for me because my previous running form would hurt me very fast.  I recovered in just a few minutes and ran the interval back to the starting point, slightly uphill.  To my amazement, that was at 11 min mile pace!  So, then I kicked it back down the hill and got a 9.88 min mile pace... but I paid for it with a fairly long recovery time.  I walked around for quite a while before I was ready to go again.  I noticed a little bit of back pain and heal impact during the fast lap, so I backed off and worked up from 13.50 to 11.67.

I would actually be very happy to be able to run at 12 min mile pace all the time.  I have no great desire to run faster than that.  What was amazing to me is that it did not feel all that different while I was running than it does when I do 16+ min miles.  Except that I soon have to stop for breath... while at the 16+ min pace I feel like I could run all day without panting!

To finish up I decided to do a mile non-stop back and forth over my .1 mile track.  I am sure I lost some time at the turn-arounds but I did it in 15.20 which is a 6:38:24 (6.64 hr) marathon finish!  I would be happy with that! I would be tickled if I could do my next 3 miler at that rate!  Why not!  I will see how it goes and will let you know.  The last few runs I have tried to do short bursts, then recover by returning to my slower pace without stopping.  I will keep that up, but with more confidence now.  The stats are below, and just remember I am Barely Running.

12/15/2009    Split     Laps     Dist      mph     min/mi    marathon

103rd .1 mi                                                                         Hours

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.                      1.33      1           0.1      4.50     13.33         5.82

.                      2.20      2           0.2      5.45     11.00         4.80

.                      0.98      1           0.1      6.10       9.83         4.29

.                      1.33      1           0.1      4.50     13.33         5.82

.                      1.07      1           0.1      5.63     10.67         4.66

.                      2.70      2           0.2      4.44     13.50         5.90

.                      1.20      1           0.1      5.00     12.00         5.24

.                      1.17      1           0.1      5.14      11.67        5.09

.                    15.20    10           1         3.95      15.20        6.64

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Avg/Total       27.18     2                     4.41       13.59         5.94