Weekly ish Running Update: Getting used to nose breathing!
Following my introduction to 'Breath' a few weeks ago I've adapted my running routine to practice nasal breathing, or breathing in and out through the nose.
I normally breath through the nose and pretty slowly, I'm a naturally good breather it turns out, but I defo mouth breath when running, mainly because I push myself pretty hard!
So my new regime has been a matter of slowing down, so I can accommodate exclusive nasal breathing, with the exception of intervals, when I try to do nose breathing for the first bit of the intense interval, but allow mouth breathing during the last bit, and then back to nose breathing during the recover phases.
I actually did for runs this week:
Sunday - 4*400 track intervals
Monday - relaxed nasal 5K
Wednesday - 4*400 trail intervals
Thursday - relaxed nasal 5K
I've ditched longer runs for the time being as I don't want to spend too long with the new breathing, it's pretty intense, basically hard work!
Sunday's track intervals...
Up early and a warm up run to the track, which is about 3K, which included 2 400 metre ish warm ups.
Then when at the track I went straight into 4 * 400 - I aimed for a 3.50 pace, nose breathing for at least the first 150 metres, but with some I managed nearer 200 and mostly managed to compromise by breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth for most of the rest, with only around 100-150 metres of mouth breathing on average, per interval.
The surprising thing is that these felt relatively easy. My aim is to carry on with these maybe two times a week, with a minimum goal of three, and then if I feel like doing more intervals I will do more!
Monday's easy run
It's new to me doing an easy run the day after intervals, but it works! I have to go slower due to the nasal breathing, but TBH with a time of just over 25 minutes, only 1 minute slower than what I was doing regularly anyway, that's pretty good, and I don't feel like I'm losing any form going, what, 3% slower!
Wednesday's field intervals
I was away for work Weds, so no track, so just had to do 4 * 400s on the trail I found myself on, which thankfully was flat-ish, but some tight corners with potential people coming the other direction meant I had to slow down in some places, and there were some bumps.
But overall I was happy with the pace!
This was a struggle to get started and I didn't feel like the 4th interval was going to be a thing, but I did it in the end!
Thursday's gentle 5K
Back on the same trail as the intervals of the day before, this was an effort to get going, work stress! Out at 7.15 ish and just gentle running, again with nose breathing the first 1.5Ks felt tough but then I found my stride and the final half was much faster, especially the final third, just over 25 mins I think again, I'll take that!
This week's running final thoughts...
Nose breathing means I've had to slow down a little during the 5Ks, but actually not that much. And with the intervals I feel like my pace is holding up OK.
It'll be interesting to see if this new breathing practice gives me more capacity to run harder once I normalise it, but that will probably take a few more weeks, if not months!
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I'm wondering if I'm too old to change my ways. I need all the oxygen I can get whilst running. I did try breathing in through my nose a bit at parkrun, but couldn't keep that up at 'race' pace.
I could never breathe through my nose while running. Instead, I used my breathing patterns to gauge my effort. For example, I would breathe in for two steps and out for two steps at an easy pace. No matter how slow I ran, if I tried to breathe through my nose, I always felt like I was suffocating. It’s just not for everyone.
It sounds like something that takes time to adapt to. It's funny that we could be doing something as fundamental as breathing 'wrong'.
Very true. I read a couple of studies a year or so ago about nasal breathing. One finding was that inhaling oxygen through the nose rather than the mouth allows it to move through our respiratory system more efficiently. Additionally, nasal breathing helps produce nitric oxide, which can lower blood pressure, improve blood flow, and neutralize airborne pathogens. However, these studies were either small-scale (with 10 or fewer participants) or hypothesized based on other research that was completed. It'll be interesting to see how the science evolves over time.
I'm interested to see how breathing through your nose works out in the long run. I can't do it!
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