From couch potato to my first Triathlon, how a simple formula changed everything

Today I completed a Triathlon sprint (750m swim, 20Km Bike, 7.5km run) a personal goal I set for myself for this year.I wanted to share how I got here as it is a bit of a catalogue of my failures and struggles. These failures might help others get out of a funk of thinking you can’t exercise.

Image credit: Banalities Couch Potato and Pexels.com (labeled for reuse with modification)

My first mistake was getting out of shape. Basically taking my health for granted. It was only after my wife Amanda came back from her time on a Hospital ward and saw just how many patients  had various lifestyle related conditions of surprisingly varied ages that the penny finally dropped for us.

Something had to give.

My second mistake was thinking exercise was supposed to be hard. You know the slogan ‘no pain, no gain' etc. At the start exercising was horrible for me. I was doing it wrong and didn’t realise it.

My third mistake was basing my training on time – it works for some, but not me. Think of couch to 5k programme – where your running time gets progressively longer and longer based on day and week you are exercising. I gave up on this.

The problem with this method is that is it takes zero account of how tired you are. Have you had a particularly stressful day? Is there a background illness that is percolating but hasn't come through yet? Does your body just need to rest? None of that is taken into account in this method. You run according to a dedicated plan. On this day you need to run 1 min longer than yesterday.

The penny finally dropped for me with this article “If you want to run faster, slow down” http://www.flotography.com/how-to-become-a-faster-runner-by…) based on a guy training for a sub 3 hour marathon.Here the whole programme of exercise is based on something that is exclusively your own.

Your heart beat.

The optimal zone to put your heart in is based on a simple formula by Dr Phil Maffetone. It's beautiful in its simplicity.

180 – age

That’s it.

So for me as a 43 year old, its 180 – 43 = 137 This is my optimal heart rate.You exercise with your heart as close to 137 as you can. If it goes over, you slow down, or even stop. You also try not to let your heart rate drop below 10 below your optimal heart rate (so for me that would be 127).

I was surprised as to how little I had to exercise for my heart to get there.

The biggest 'gotcha' is that you feel like you are not doing enough. It’s a common response to this method.

The only slight change is that if you have been exercising for 3 months without any sniffles or any kind of illness, then you can add another 5 onto your optimal heart rate (for me my optimal heart rate would then be 142).

Or if you have got some kind of illness, or even a sniffle, you take off 5 from your optimal heart rate (so for me that would be a new optimal rate of 132). Your immune system is a little compromised and stressing your body won't help it.

I came across this wonderful slogan ‘fit, but not healthy’. In an age of drive, drive, drive, more, more, more, you tend to see people who do get into an exercise regime, can get a little crazy with it. One ‘problem’ with exercise and something that I didn’t realise was that as you go past your optimal heart rate you actually start to put your body into a stressed state.

Haven’t you noticed that if you work out really hard, sometimes you immediately get the sniffles? Or you can actually feel a bit blue after the initial high. Or people can start to get excessively addicted to exercise - aching for the next session. The stress response can actually undermine good mental health.

Equally, as you go beyond your threshold your body switches to getting its energy from the glycogen in your blood rather than the fat in your body. This is why you get the munchies after you exercise.

Basing your training on your heart rate, bypasses all these problems.

By using this method you slowly reconfigure your entire cardio vascular system. This takes 18 months – so it’s a slow process. But your body reconfigures to burn fat more efficiently.And at a lower heartrate you don’t tend to pick up any injuries through over training.

As you train using this method, your heart gets stronger and stronger, so you find over time you can run, bike, swim faster and faster.

I had a strange thing happen today when I was at about 15km on the bike, my heart rate started to go down! I was also at the same effort level as a fit looking twenty something – doing the same level and intensity of exercise and his heart was at 180. Mine was 137. Something’s not right with that kind of ‘success’ in that twenty something’s mind isn't it?

Finally, there is an important place for taking your heart above your optimal level. This method does include this also - but that's for another time.

So if you feel so inclined. Get yourself a watch that monitors your heart. Find one where it buzzes if you go over your target rate – this stops you clock watching.

And do far less exercise than you think you need to do.