There's a part of my training that's been sorely lacking for a number of years and that is the discipline of getting down to the track and laying down a few speedy intervals. It's not that the mind and body haven't been willing but for various reasons I haven't found the right time and place until now; at last, I'm glad to say, Tri London has started up a weekly track-based work-out and, even better, it's on my way home. Okay I have to hold my hands up and admit that I've missed the first two of these but today I was determined and it was a good thing too because only three of us made it and one (Tomas) was blowing the whistle!
So after a short warm-up we settled upon an ever-so simple plan: today Ian and I would run for two minutes, rest for two minutes and repeat this all eight times. Easy-peasy - the only fly in the ointment being that we had to run in zone 5 which is around about 5K pace (or 90-100% of your maximum heart rate); in other words pretty committing. I wasn't wearing a heart rate monitor but I've done enough races to have a pretty good idea of how my body handles this sort of stress and how quickly I should start out; especially if I was to meet Tomas' goal of hitting the same end-point for every one of the repetitions!
So after a short warm-up we settled upon an ever-so simple plan: today Ian and I would run for two minutes, rest for two minutes and repeat this all eight times. Easy-peasy - the only fly in the ointment being that we had to run in zone 5 which is around about 5K pace (or 90-100% of your maximum heart rate); in other words pretty committing. I wasn't wearing a heart rate monitor but I've done enough races to have a pretty good idea of how my body handles this sort of stress and how quickly I should start out; especially if I was to meet Tomas' goal of hitting the same end-point for every one of the repetitions!
 |
| Regents Park cinder track |
At first I wondered if I was moving too quickly (at 5:45 min/mile pace it turns out) but Ian wasn't that far behind and I wanted to give it my best shot. Also two minutes isn't all that long (enough for about 600m) and it is possible to keep your pace up over the last 200m if you concentrate on your breathing and form. After the first four intervals I still felt pretty strong and with the last two I tried just that bit harder; at the time it didn't feel like I was going that much faster but looking at the data I got down to a 5:30 min/mile pace and I find that both astonishing and gratifying. There's life in the old dog yet!
Okay I know that I've got to keep coming to these sessions if I'm going to see any benefit and that's always going to be tough with my relaxed attitude to training but I'm going to try - really I am! I just hope that Tri London manage to get enough momentum going to make these work-outs a permanent fixture.
Distance: 5.4 miles
Time: 42m 26s
No comments:
Post a Comment