Let Your Engine Idle
Study shows marathon fitness does not fall away as quickly as feared
Fear not: your fitness is still there
IF YOU ARE WORRIED that the long lockdown has affected your marathon fitness, here’s some good news: even a small amount of training will have limited the reduction. In a study,1 21 runners agreed to do almost no exercise for eight weeks after a marathon. During marathon training, they had averaged almost 32 miles per week; after the event, they averaged three to four miles per week. Neither the runners’ VO2 max (a measure of maximal aerobic capacity) or total haemoglobin mass (a measure of red blood cells, which carry oxygen to the muscles) declined significantly during the study period. ‘I think had we completely stopped them from exercising, we would have seen a greater, more consistent detraining effect,’ says Charles Pedlar, of Harvard Medical School in Boston, US, and St Mary’s University, London. ‘Maintaining a small amount of training can offset the losses.’