Ash Lewis shares how he built aerobic fitness through MAF training, starting with walk-run sessions and keeping a notebook log. He found his optimal heart rate around 137-139 bpm and discovered that running faster actually eroded his ability to sustain effort. The hardest part wasn't the slow pace but ignoring what his peers thought.
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you're a person and you have ups and downs and you have good, good and bad days and you have no sleep and have a child who's crying and, you know, in the nighttime. And, and sometimes you just have runs which just don't fit into what you were doing. But all of a sudden, next day comes along and it's okay. And then the next day comes along and it's okay. And then you might get another bad one, but it's just maintaining that constant— it, it It does 100% work. I 100% testament that it is running at a low heart rate. You do get quicker because you're getting fitter. You're not getting injured. But it is at the start when people don't think it's working and they have to walk. Everyone's doing it. Don't worry about what anyone's thinking when you're— which is tough actually when you're running and especially in Jersey where people know you. You might get people who know you where you are and you see running slow. That's tough. And then Strava makes it tough because no one— you always want to say, hey, by the way guys, I'm running this slow because— but you know, just let you know, it's a strange thing. But, um, don't worry about any of that. I say don't worry about what anyone thinks, just keep to what you're doing and, and run your own sort of run. That's, that's honestly what I've done, and it's— and it works. I look back at my notes earlier and it's just walking and then running and walking. And I made sure that I wrote down notes, not just having on my Strava, but actually physically wrote down in my book. So yeah, that's, that's where it started. Definitely slow down. Don't, don't get too upset, even if for the first couple of weeks, months, it's not, it's not working. It does take time and it is frustrating and everyone that's doing it is finding frustrating and swearing in the air. But I think if you just maintain that you're going to improve, you will, you will improve. Um, yeah, just don't beat yourself up so much. I always beat myself up all the time if, um, I had one bad run. You know, it doesn't matter, like, it's not the end of the world because tomorrow is a new day and you get to run again. So, um, and staying injury-free, again, it's, it's just not— it's not pushing it too much, not doing too much too soon. Um, yeah, that's, that's probably what I would say about it. It's difficult because there's so many, there's so many, there's so many things you could say. But I read a lot on your, on the Facebook page about, um, am I doing it, am I doing it right, am I doing it correct? And you are. You've just got to keep with it. Um, it doesn't— I mean, I guess it doesn't work for absolutely everyone, but I'm pretty sure that if you to run every single day at a very low heart rate, there's going to be improvements. There just has to be. I was working less and I was getting quicker, and my body was able to cope with it to the point where now I can't really run at my max anymore. I can't run at 144. If I was to run at 144 every single day, I wouldn't be able to run at 144. So now I actually have to dial it back to kind of like 137, 137 is good for me, or, you know, between 137 and 139, and that's it. That seems to be a nice pace I can sit in for a little while.
It's so, it's so funny how you say that, because indeed at the beginning I see that so often that people have a hard time even having to slow down that much to stay within their max training zone. Yet after a while, as they develop more aerobically, like staying within that zone, especially as the training volume is up there and as they aerobically are more developed becomes more and more challenging. And you find what that right heart rate is, where it feels right for you.
Yeah, you just know. Yeah, you just become really in tune with it. And I think that's really important at the start.
