Training increases what that pace is, but ultimately no (land?) mammal can exceed their aerobic threshold for long, since there are limits to stored oxygen. Cetaceans and pinnipeds might be an interesting exception.
That said, I remember doing similar 'runs to the parking lot' and being gassed when I was totally untrained despite being capable of long walks/hikes. I suspect there are even more basic adaptations one needs to be able to do these very short activities for which a more trained individual can complete anaerobically.
I say this as someone incredibly out of shape, but I doubt any of those people are wiped out by running to the bus stop ;)
> I suspect there are even more basic adaptations one needs to be able to do these very short activities for which a more trained individual can complete anaerobically.
Yeah absolutely, I found it very interesting that weight training is universal in sprinters, it makes sense as metabolic training as well as the actual muscle growth.
Adding distance/time into your program is probably going to help, as long as you don't feel too tired/sore or that you're over-training
Consider adding interval training to your regime. That's a more time efficient way of improving your VO2MAX (which should translate to your overall performance). E.g. 1-2 minutes 90%-100%, 1-2 minutes walk/slow/jog, x3-5 (this is rough, do some reading and see what works for you).
When biking, it really doesn't help that I have some silly hills surrounding the house. Even if I'm not going all out, a 10% climb takes its toll.
Now that you've recognized how gentle a low heartrate feels I'm sure a conversational pace is totally adequate for staying under your lactic threshold (but if you could sing you're going too slow!)
For a beginner a good tip is just to go a little bit easier than they think they should be going. Once you've built some sort of aerobic base your training should start including intervals and runs that push you harder.
There are two risks in pushing yourself too hard. Injury and over-training.
EDIT: another thing I didn't mention is that in terms of injury you want to give your body plenty of time to build more distance. Most of your joints and other tissues take longer to adapt than cardiovascular. I think this is where people can get into potential injury situations by ramping up too fast. I personally also try to run on soft surfaces (trails etc.) since I find hard surfaces (roads) a lot more punishing.
I pretty much settled on what all they were saying. I was taking the exact path you outlined. Since that seems to be working fine for me, and I'm also adding weights, I figured I would wait and try again later. Probably in a year or so, if I can keep up this schedule. Good luck on your exercise!
My heart rate goes down way faster, so if I stop for 1 second (literally), my heart rate drops immediately and it takes a lot of effort for it to go back up.
I suspect at this point training in zone 2 is trivial, my body gets naturally there
TL; DR; train hard first, your heart gets stronger and brings you to zone 2 naturally?
I'm no athlete or expert, so please do your research and ignore everything I said
Being naked helps a lot too.
The same way if you lie in bed for a month you're not going to be doing 20 hour hikes either.
Fitness isn't a one-dimensional thing -- our muscles adapt efficiently to our specific activities and only our specific activities.
So comparing the efficiency of walking and running only makes sense for someone who is already well-adapted to both.
Your body can be thought of as a directed graph of different pools of energy with different edge weights representing how fast you can move energy between pools, and your fitness as being your ability to move energy into the ATP pool. If you can walk a km in 10 minutes for 200 kj, or run it in 5 minutes for 200 kj, and you can produce 300 kj of ATP in 10 minutes, then you're going to run out of energy running but be able to walk indefinitely, even though both are equally efficient. (In practice the numbers are going to be different, and there are more conversions than just glucose to ATP to think about, but I think the example illustrates the point).
I have found it to be more efficient than mindless hiking/walking. I try to loosen my gaite and keep upright when I remember to.
Also, having done extensive Taibata, squats, weight lifting, and cycling. Nothing compared to hiking (often steep terrain) for conditioning. I'm strong from the inside out and it (strength) persists for much longer than other conditioning exercises. And it's crazy enjoyable. Cycling was enjoyable (and far more painful overall) but it guarantees nothing for core strength and will typically result in repetition injuries (years of experience MTB and road).
you are probably not trained as well as our ancestors, who were consistently jog-hunting since very young ages, which translates to more efficient mind-body connection, target muscles and energy systems development, and fat to body mass ratio.
There are plenty of people who can jog for many miles and likely has higher aerobic threshold for moderate sprinting.
The mental model in my head sort of accounts for effort it takes just to be upright for 10 hours even if you don't cover any distance at all. Low-effort running saves me half of that energy because I spend less time upright.
I did horse riding for a bit, that is not true. There is a lot of speed ranges you can choose from
The linked paper in the parent comment has a graph on page 347 (page 2 of the content). The human's walk curve is substantially more efficient than the other gaits, included on the graph, which is the point I was trying to make. Humans best their caloric/distance ratios over time ("endurance hunting").
Horses have more than two speeds. They can walk, trot, gait, gallup.
> Although not extensively studied in non-humans, endurance running is unique to humans among primates, and uncommon among quadrupedal mammals other than social carnivores (such as dogs and hyenas) and migratory ungulates (such as wildebeest and horses)
Anyway I was attempting a clumsy metaphor to aid someone's understanding, not trying to be pedantic. It's easiest to compare sprinting and not-sprinting.