“I wasn’t RUNNING! I was JOGGING!”
I get this comment all. The. Time. Usually, it's in reference to the 140 heart rate cap. My response is usually, “YES! YOU ARE WELCOME!” I’m not sure why I have to do this. "Jogging" is not a dirty word. Jogging is AWESOME. Jogging IS running. Why do you hate jogging? The heart rate cap ensures you jog, I totally admit it. 80% of the time, jogging is what you need to be doing.
Jogging is a form of running at a slow or leisurely pace. The main intention is to increase physical fitness with less stress on the body than from faster running, or to maintain a steady speed for longer periods of time. Performed over long distances, it is a form of aerobic endurance training.
Once upon a time, jogging was THE BUSINESS. All the cool kids did it. Jogging was called "roadwork" when athletes in training, such as boxers, customarily ran several miles each day as part of their conditioning (think “Rocky”). In New Zealand during the 1960s or 1970s the word "roadwork" was mostly supplanted by the word "jogging", promoted by coach Arthur Lydiard, who is credited with popularizing jogging. University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman, after jogging with Lydiard in New Zealand in 1962, published the book Jogging in 1966, popularizing jogging in the United States.
Since jogging itself is not an Olympic sport, it has no hard and fast pace rules to define it. The pace is determined by the runner. Any pace where a runner's body relies primarily on the aerobic system (when you use glucose that is NOT AEROBIC) is a jogging pace. For Lydiard's training groups, their pace was 6 minute miles. Did you hear that? THEIR JOG IS MY SPRINT.
Jogging is a form of aerobic endurance training. Marathons and halves are aerobic endurance events. You must jog to train for an aerobic endurance event. We run fast and hard only when we need to do so. The rest of the time, we jog. Jogging is efficient use of stored energy. That's why jogging doesn't hurt and running does.
For those of you who say you might as well be walking….um…NO. Different sport.
Race walking differs from running in that it requires the competitor to
maintain contact with the ground at all times
keep the leading leg straightened as the foot makes contact with the ground. It must remain straightened until the leg passes under the body.
“hahahahahaha, that is an Olympic sport? I wanna try it I bet I would win!”
No. No you really don’t.
In race walking, judges evaluate the technique of race walkers and report fouls which may lead to disqualification. All judging is done by the eye of the judge and no outside technology is used in making judging decisions. – USATF handbook 2016
CAN YOU IMAGINE???? What if there were judges along a marathon race course that could kick you out for walking?
I'll stick with my jogging.
Coach MK Fleming is the founder of Fitness Protection, LLC where she coaches all kinds of runners for $29 per month and gives marathon plans away for free. Click here to download her most popular training plan, Tenacious AF!