Running – Interval Training

I’m beginning to enjoy running again at the moment. My last run was good and I was pleased with my average pace of less than 7 minute miles. It’s not fast and nowhere near as fast as I used to manage 20 years ago when I could easily bang out a 10k in 40 minutes, but it’s an improvement on what I could do a year or so ago.

A couple of friends have been going on about running lately as well so I thought I’d go for another run today. Also, as I have a new Garmin Forerunner 305 I thought I’d try out its ‘Advanced workouts’ feature.

This feature allows you to program in a specific workout and then the watch beeps at you each time you need to change pace and lets you kow what you should be doing. I programmed in the following workout which I was just about able to complete today.

  • 10 minute warm up – Steady pace with no target
  • 3x 600m hard – target pace of 6:00 – 6:40 mins/mile followed by 3 mins recovery
  • 3x 400m hard – target pace of 6:00 – 6:40 mins/mile followed by 3 mins recovery
  • 3x 200m hard – target pace of 6:00 – 6:40 mins/mile followed by 3 mins recovery
  • 5 minutes cool down

The Garmin was great, instructing me what to do and telling me if I needed to speed up or if I was achieving my desired pace. It was also a good motivator. Although the overall pace of the run wasn’t high, the intervals made it tough and I probably wouldn’t have gone quite so far had it not been for the fact that I was trying to complete the workout. Things weren’t helped by the fact that I ran along the beach to Borth and back but got back to Ynyslas with still a couple of intervals to go. It would have been all too easy to end the session then but I continued on north beyond our house just to finish it.

As I said, the overall pace wasn’t very high and for some reason my maximum heart rate was pretty low too – not much higher than my average heart rate on a fast paced run. However, I did do just over 10K which isn’t bad for me at the moment and I’m sure the fast paced intervals will help with my overall speed in the long run… That’s assuming I can still walk tomorrow!

2 Responses

  1. Avatar forComment Author Alan says:

    Surprisingly my legs feel fine this morning!

    Al.

  2. Avatar forComment Author Alan says:

    Although I’m still scheduling in a rest day today and hopefully (if time and commitments allow) a long MTB ride tomorrow.

    Al.

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.