Bret

I'm interested in hearing your Alter-G assessment and how you feel you are maintaining your fitness with it.

Rob - I like the Alter-G quite a bit - however, it remains to be seen if it is actually maintaining my fitness. I suppose if after a period of weeks of running on the equipment I was able to run at or near the same level as prior to using it, that would be the best test.

However since I have not done any land running in 2 weeks, I suppose I can only gauge my fitness in relative comparison from each time I am on the machine.

I use the HR monitor and generally see about the same HR with the same settings (% of weightlessness, speed, incline) - I may be seeing a slight drop off (increase in HR toward the ends of my sessions).

I suppose if I had unfettered access to the machine and was able to use it much more frequently than 3-4 times per week - I would probably see very little drop off, if at all.

I read where Dathan Ritzenhein had a 3rd metatarsal stress fracture a couple of years ago - and he immediately went to Oregon to Al Sal's camp - and ran 2 x per day on the Alter-G - in 1 hour sessions for 6 weeks. After the 4th week he started adding about 10 mins per day of land running until he was running full time on land.

He claims he did not miss a beat in his training - and in fact felt more energized after that injury/cross training spell than before.