Thursday, November 13, 2008

Intervals on the Prom (in the drizzle)

I picked my car up this morning, its all fixed. I was going to cycle to the garage but the logistics of taking running kit, towels, laptop, lunch got silly so I got a lift in.

I decided to do some intervals today, not done speed training for a while and it makes the run more interesting. The Prom in St Annes is a good place to do them as it has a long stretch of pretty much uninterrupted path. There are a few bends to negotiate but no road junctions to seriously break stride on.

The plan was a 20 minute/2 miles warmup followed by 6 x 1 minute intervals with 30 second recovery, making sure I manage all of them at the same pace and not dying after the first one, then jog the mile and a half back to the office.

Jog there was ok, nice speed and drizzle not too bad, it wasn't actually that cold either and I much prefer doing speedwork when its colder (though not arctic). I warmed up for 20 minutes, which was just over 2 miles. However, the weather was coming in from a more southerly direction so I got the wind and drizzle in my face for my intervals.

I did the first interval and it was over before I knew it, 30 seconds rest and I was off again. It took until the third interval for my form to settle down, I always feel a little unco-ordinated running fast if I haven't done it for a while. I concentrated on posture, looking ahead and foot turnover.

Once I reached the 6th interval I wasn't completely dead so I decided to do two more but a little harder. I found the eighth one difficult to complete which is as it should be.

As always after doing intervals and thinking about how I am running the run back to work felt really smooth and controlled. I resisted the temptation to keep the speed up and arrived back at work not completely exhausted.

I think the one minute intervals are too short really and I think short intervals are probably best kept for the track, I mainly do longer races so will do two minute intervals next time with one minute jog recoveries.

I hadn't realised how wet I was, because I was working hard and it wasn't freezing I hadn't noticed but as I walked the last little bit back to my building I chilled down quite quickly and my feet were squelching a little, yuck.

Note to self...take trainers out of bag so they can dry. I'm at home again tomorrow so an easy day is planned with probably only a bimble on the Spesh to do some shopping planned.

4 comments:

  1. Most coaches now say you should feel you could do one more interval if wanted - although only one - and that is the time to stop.

    Sounds a good session but you are probably right about doing longer intervals if you are doing longer races. Although the minute ones will give you a great sprint finish!

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  2. If I hadn't upped the intensity a little I could but they were so short. I've made lots of mistakes in the past with these including being too tired to run back to the office, so hopefully I'll do my next set just as strongly. I also thought launching straight into longer intervals wasn't a good idea after no speed work for a long time.

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  3. I have this image of you crawling back to the office ;)

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  4. It felt like it sometimes, I didn't have stairs to my office then either.

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