It's been about 3 weeks since I last did any interval training. Looking back, I believe it was March 2. I'm following a slightly different plan now. Back then I was running really fast for short stretches and resting for longer periods. Today I did 2 minutes fast followed by 1 minute of slow jog.
It was a little cooler this morning that it has been so I threw on a long sleeve shirt before heading out. There wasn't much wind so the lake was glassy smooth. I started out with a 5 minute walk, then a 1 mile warm up at a fairly slow jog. After hitting the lap button to start the intervals I had programmed into my Garmin, I picked up the pace, attempting to average around 8:30/mile. I nailed the first one with a pace of 8:31/mile. Of course, it wasn't a steady 8:31/mile. At one point I was somewhere in the 7s and then somewhere in the 9s. Still, I was pleased with the decent pacing. After that my pace was all over the map. 8:31 ended up being the slowest interval I ran, though. My fastest was the last on at 7:43. That's pretty amazing to me, because by this time I was beat. In general, my last 5 were faster than the first 5. It's good that it's become second nature to pick up the pace in the second half of my runs. I also noticed a trend toward running faster during the slower rest portions as the workout progressed. It's funny because I really felt like I was much slower. In reality, my last rest was more than a minute per mile faster than my first. Once that was over I was still about a half mile from the car so I jogged back at just under 10:00/mile.
Overall, the run wasn't nearly as hard as I had anticipated. Not that it was easy. I definitely pushed myself, but I feel like I could have pushed myself quite a bit harder. Either way, I'm sticking to this plan for the next 4 weeks or so until my next 5K, theoretically on 4/30. I'm certain it will improve my time, but I'm not sure by how much. I'm hoping for a sub 27 minute time which means I'll have to run an average pace of 8:43/mile.
Today's Stats: I did a total of 4.74 miles in 44:48 for an average pace of 9:27. Considering all of the slow jogging that was thrown in there, I was really surprised at that pace. It was one of my fastest training sessions, edged out by only a couple of shorter runs.
Next up: Another swim tomorrow morning and a long run on Saturday if I can fit one in between storms. According to the plan, I'm supposed to run for approximately 3 times what it took to finish my last 5K. That's 1.5 hours. I'm not supposed to worry about pace, other than keeping it steady and continuous. If I want to do a full 90 minutes, I'm going to have to definitely try to keep my pace slow and easy. I might venture elsewhere for this run. I would have to run the length of the park about 3 times to go for 90 minutes and I think that might get extremely boring. I might just head out the front door and see where that takes me.
Bonus: I passed my 2010 mileage today! I'm on pace for over 500 miles this year. If I decide to up my mileage to train for a half marathon in October, I could possibly double that.
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