Based on the advice from a dear friend and an intimidating drill sergeant, I’m incorporating interval training into my running routine. Or maybe it’s fartlek training. Here’s what I’m actually doing. You can be the judge!
With the arrival of snow and cold weather, I’ve moved a couple of my runs indoors onto the treadmill. Yep, I’m back to running nowhere but I’m becoming okay with it. It’s important that I achieve my goal of a sub-35 minute 5K by March 31st so speed training is a must. Today I decided that I would take a slightly different approach. Instead of running a set time or distance, I decided to increase my speed for the length of the next song, recover with the following song and then go back to increased speed. It’s a great idea. Get caught up in the music and not let my mind fret over the time or distance. I would run steady at about 6.5KM/hr and then up it to 8KM/hr. I pull up my most played songs and hit shuffle. This is how it plays out:
- End of warm up – MGMT: Kids
- First Interval – Rolling Stones: You Can’t Always Get What You Want 7:28 (WHAT!!!)
- Recovery – Soundgarden: Spoonman 4:06
- Second Interval – Ram Jam: Black Betty 3:57
- Recovery – No Doubt: It’s My Life 3:45
- Third Interval – Fleetwood Mac: Go Your Own Way 3:38
- Recovery – The Orb: Blue Room 4:01
My first interval and it’s seven and a half minutes. And it’s titled, You Can’t Always Get What You Want. Fate sent me a very clear message I first received 18 months ago. Attending the APICS conference in Pittsburgh, the featured speaker really focused on the message lyrics.
“You can’t always get what you want,
You can’t always get what you want,
You can’t always get what you want.
But if you try sometime, you just might find,
You get what you need. Ahhh ya.”
Today, my second day of interval training, I was not planning on running a 7+ minute interval at 8KM/hour but I did. And I did it pretty well. This pace for this amount of time boosted my confidence. I felt great at the end of the run. I felt that I made significant progress today. Even though 7+ minutes was not what I wanted, I got what I need.
Rita Andriello
Great job, that’s a beast of an interval!
I need to incorporate more interval work into my running. But right now I’m just doing shorter runs in the cold and the early darkness (I’ll kick it up in a notch when I start training in March!), so I’m enjoying some nice comfortable runs without worrying about intervals or splits. Always gotta have those, too, or I’ll forget why I love to run!