Interval Training

Well, that's the piece that's been missing from my workouts and my body sure let's me know it.

Here just last week I was talking about how I was feeling the progress, and I posted on our facebook page about how I dropped 30 seconds a mile off my pace for my 10 mile long run even though I went from a flat course back to the hilly one here in Richmond.  Ah, but different workouts are for different muscles and systems in the old bod and except for the Short Hills I did two weeks ago I haven't done much in the Interval Department.

I did the 400's on the treadmill last week and those were pretty good, but the treadmill is different than running on the ground.  And perhaps I needed to do another week of nothing longer than 400's to help me adapt to that lactate buildup, but what the hell.  I need to get into these workouts pretty quickly if I want to be able to race a mile at the end of March in the Indoor Nationals meet in Landover, MD.

I took a day of rest yesterday because of the soreness in my hips from the sprint workout I did on Sunday along with all the tiling and grouting which is brutal on my glutes and hamstrings.  I need to get faster, not hurt, so the rest was a good thing.  I felt better this morning and set out to do a mini-pyramid workout on the track.  400, 600, 800, 600, 400 with a slow 400 between each rep for rest.  Mr. McMillan and his calculator suggested I run between 1:41 and 1:44 for my 400's, between 2:31 and 2:36 for my 600's, and between 3:22 and 3:28 for my 800's.  However, those paces normally are part of longer workouts, like a 10x or something like that.  My workout today, was going to be short so I bumped up everything to a 6 flat pace pretty confident that I could pull that off.

I ran up to the track at the middle school and stepped up to the starting line.  I love this part of every workout.  It's dark, I'm alone, and I'm picturing in my mind how I'm going to push myself.  My first 400 was in 1:28 and felt pretty decent, though I figured I was going to have a difficult time stringing two of those together.  I quickly reset my watch and jogged off around the track.

Now normally, I like to give myself three minutes of passive rest between sets, but a lot of what I've read over the last year suggests making that rest a slow jog and not just standing around.  It keeps the heart rate slightly up and encourages recovery improvement better than the passive rest.  Which is to say it makes the workouts a little harder.  I was concerned that my slow jog would be too slow and I'd end up with more rest time than I wanted, but that turned out to be no worry at all.  I came around to the starting line again in 2:29 so I actually got to stand there, reset my watch again and get a couple of relaxing deep breaths in.

Then off for the 600.  I checked my watch at the 200 and 400 meter marks to make sure I was on pace and finished that one in 2:16.  A hair slow, but it didn't feel slow.  While I reset my watch and started off on my slow lap, I knew the 800 was not going to be easy and I would need to push the last 200 to keep it at three minutes.  When I got back to the start line I had done the slow lap in 2:29 again, and my breathing was just about normal.  Nice.

I lined up and took off again.  Checking myself at 200, 400, and 600 meters.  I crossed that mark right on 2:15 and with 200 more meters to go I could feel it.  I was breathing hard and my thighs burned.  "Just 150 more to go, Ed.  Hold steady wuss boy."

I talk to myself a lot when I'm running.  Totally goofy, but I do much worse.  Just ask my kids.

I finished that up right on 3:00 and proceeded to dry heave.  I wasn't exactly expecting that, but my abs were getting that tight feeling the last 100.  "Oh well," I thought as I took off jogging for my slow lap, "they just get shorter from here.  Two to go."

My next 600 felt hard, but I finished it in 2:13 and didn't dry heave at all.  I always try to push my last rep like it's the end of a race and I pounded that last 400 out in 1:19.  Man, my legs were all rubbery the last 50 meters of that straight away.

I took a good 30 seconds before I reset my watch and headed home.  The whole way back I was thinking about how that workout, with those paces, should be all the way up to 1200 twice before coming back down and I think I actually did that workout last spring sometime.  Oh well, starting up again is always tough, and I'm on my way for the upcoming track season.

I have a day at the gym tomorrow and I'll test out my biceps to see if it's healing up at all.  Then on Thursday I'm back on my Short Hill.  Since I only did four reps the first time I'll shoot for six this time.  Keeping them "easy" compared to where I ended up last year so I get all six reps in and max out the benefits for the workout.

And then of course I have to finish the grout in the kitchen and keep on tiling out into the living room...