New Theory

I have a new theory. It's about why I am running so slow. Really, I keep getting slower and slower, and now I think I know why. It follows right in line with the current theory on fitness and fatigue.

Back in the day when I was reading articles in Runners World and other sources, I thought exercise physiology was solid science. According the everyone writing back then, fatigue was always related to oxygen. Run far enough, and eventually your heart and lungs fail to deliver enough of the stuff and lactic acid builds up poisoning the muscles and shutting you down.

After being off for eighteen years, I came back to endurance sports as a participant and a reader only to be shocked to learn that scientist did not understand fatigue at all. Lactic acid, I was now told, was not a poison at all, but in fact a fuel our muscles use to burn and produce energy. The lack of oxygen in fact is often not the cause of fatigue even if the cause was not clear. 

Scientist are now postulating a new model called the Central Governor Theory. In this view, a segment of the brain, the central governor, monitors heart rate, body temperature, respiration, blood lactate levels, blood pressure, and blood sugar and shuts down muscle fibers accordingly producing fatigue and thus protecting us from killing ourselves or damaging ourselves via overexertion. What I just gave you is a thumbnail sketch of a complicated theory, but I buy it because it accounts for all the data which the old model failed to do.

How does that relate to your current pace, you ask? In my present thinking, my brain's central governor is keeping my pace very slow to prevent me from damaging my left knee. I was off for two years because of that knee, and I am no longer a young man. That itself is part of the reason but not all the reason I can now barely beat a walk. At my current pace, I am not damaging myself despite the fact that I am running up to eleven and twelve miles at a time. So maybe I should relax and be happy that I can run at all. I am indeed happy that after two years off I can run. But I still yearn to be able to knock off some quick miles. Will that come back? I guess my knee is the limiter.

Thank you, Jesus, that I can shuffle at any pace. And touch my knee, please, that I might shuffle at a faster pace. At least sometimes.