1:1 Intervals

Decided to try something new today in an attempt to improve my speed and/or stamina. I can run 5K pretty comfortably now, but constantly hovering around the 42-45 minute mark. It’d be nice to get that down a bit.

So, spurred on by an article I saw linked on the Couch 2 5K Facebook Page, I decided to try some interval training to see what a difference that might make. It would also give me the opportunity to try out the “custom workout” coaching facility on RunKeeper Pro (which, if you weren’t aware, is free until the end of January—better hurry!) and see how that worked.

Pretty well, as it happens. You can set up your own custom routine based on either time or distance intervals, with each interval being set to “slow” (walking), “steady” (jogging) or “fast” (RUN! RUN LIKE THE WIND!). You can set up number of reps and whether there’s a 5 minute warm-up and/or cool-down, too.

So the technology side was all good. How about the biological, physiological and psychological sides?

Hm. Hard work. Significantly harder work than steadily jogging 5K. But I did it. And I’m glad I did.

The reason I’m glad I did is because I, as usual, started much too quickly after the warmup period, and was out of breath very quickly. I was running jolly fast for that minute, though. There’s a big spike on my graph and everything. But gasping for breath after one minute obviously isn’t what this kind of training is quite supposed to be about. After that first interval, I thought “there’s no way I’ll ever be able to do this. There’s too much ahead.”

And it did look like an insurmountable challenge at that point—the “plan” I was following today was three sets of four groups of one minute fast then one minute steady, with two minutes’ walking between each set. Given that I felt exhausted after one fast rep, I was doubtful of my own ability to complete this challenge.

But turning the speed down a bit and telling my legs that “fast” doesn’t necessarily mean “AS FAST AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN” worked. I was still out of breath by the end of each fast rep, but the steady jog (which was actually pretty slow, but you have to do what you can) offered enough time for me to get my breath back. Right there is proof that I am at least a bit fitter than I used to be; a minute of exertion used to require considerably longer than a minute to get my breath back. A minute of doing nothing, let alone a minute of moderate activity.

I was quite surprised to discover that following this routing almost covered 5K of its own accord—not quite, but nearly. And I can definitely feel that it was hard work today, which is good.

I think I’m going to aim to train like this once a week, with a more steady “endurance” run on the other two sessions in the week. Along with the push-ups and sit-ups of course. Which, as it happens, I’m off to do right now.