Brisbane Running. Tired Ironman. Run Brisbane. Brisbane Running Tours. Wild Runners

Recover from running intervals faster

Have you ever finished a hard interval only for your sadistic* coach to tell you to “keep moving around”? Why can’t they just back off and let you have a lay down?

Rest assured your coach isn’t just trying to prolong your pain. While you might think your heart does all the work pushing much needed oxygen to your (now rather jelly like) legs, this is only half the picture.

Your heart works with gravity to push oxygen rich blood out through thick walled arteries to your burning calves, but more than half of your blood spends its time in your soft veins travelling back up to your heart and lungs. To fight the force of gravity, our skeletal muscles are recruited to help the heart. The muscles help to squeeze the blood through a series of one way valves aiding your tirelessly pumping heart.

So, whilst you may think you coach is enjoying your pain just a little too much, give your heart a hand, aid recovery and keep walking after that last hard effort.

It seems coaches aren’t all bad after all!

Have fun on the run,

Tim

 

*barbaric, perverse, vicious, brutal, ruthless, fiendish.