interval training – Not a Jogger

Catching myself counting

On Wednesday evening, I went to the running track. It was 21 degrees at 7pm and the infield was split in two by the August sun. For the first 200 metres we ran in the light, and then dipped into shadow on the curve before the final straight.

A group of fast kids were finishing their training before our session. One at a time, they sprinted past, upright and strong. Impossible leg action.

In our warm-up, I held the image of those kids in my mind while my body was transported back to school PE humiliation. Lining up in lanes, we tried our best to do high knees and squats and skipping, ignoring adult aches and pains.

Running around the track, with the wind in my hair, I felt better. I stopped caring how I looked from the outside. We ran a five minute tempo section and then began the intervals: 2 minutes effort, 1 minute break; 1 minute effort, 30 seconds break. Six times.

I was daunted at first. At the beginning and end of each effort I could only think about the ones stretching ahead in who knows how many loops. But after a couple, I lost count of the reps behind or ahead. I just held on to whether this was a 2 or a 1 minute effort.

When Kirsten blew the whistle I walked – no shame in it. I used to try to “float” between reps because I thought that’s what athletes did. I’m over that now. Not that it was a choice this week – I needed to walk to recover.

I entered a kind of trance. Circling and re-circling, passing and being passed. Light, shade and light again.

Towards the end, I found myself counting in my head to get through the reps. I sometimes count in races, or at the end of a run when I want to give up but I have one last section to get through. I count slowly – one count every two seconds – and it works. It uses up the time. It gets me through it.

Lately, I’ve been catching myself counting at other times. On a car journey. In a meeting. On a run when I’m just trying to enjoy it. I want to stop doing this.

There’s a short post in my ‘drafts’ from June 2023 that I kept because I liked the title. It says:

‘I went to the track this week. The last time I did a track session was four years ago. Saw the kids running. I could feel the magic but it wasn’t my magic. I could see it, and feel its shape, but I knew it wasn’t mine. I would never get caught up in it. As I left, I joked “see you again in four years’ time”.’

It only took me three years.

The post was called Borrowed Magic.

In my pomp at the Yaxley runners timed mile. The building behind has been demolished.

No Inclination for Intervals

Yesterday evening I ran my last proper “session” before marathon day. The plan said 10 x 400m with 90 seconds rest. I attempted to be organised. I searched around on mapmyrun for a flat section of road with no cross-streets that was about 400m, found one and set off.

When I got there I soon realised:

a) it was not flat
b) it was not 400m
c) it was frickin’ windy.

It turns out that 0.44km is not 4 metres more than 400m, it is 40 metres more than 400m. 40 metres is quite a long way.

The downhill intervals were run with the wind behind me, super- fast. The uphill ones were not. I only managed 8 in the end, with 4 of them feeling like hill sprints and 4 like gentle jogs.

There is, no doubt, a lesson in this somewhere.

Giving your all

So Ryan Hall, of training plan fame, came fourth in the Boston marathon on Saturday, with a time of just under 2 hours 5 minutes. Not bad I suppose, but was he running up Shepherd’s Hill at 5k pace this morning before 6.30am? No he was not.

Of all the hard sessions in his excellent plan, interval training is still the one I’m most comfortable with. The thought of a tempo run before breakfast turns my stomach, but I quite enjoyed the intervals this morning. I suspect I was running them (5 x 1k at 5k pace) more slowly than I would have at 6.30pm, but I was going as fast as I could and only cut one of them short (the last, and only by 30 seconds).

It was a warm morning and the sky glowed pink over blue Crouch End rooftops as the sun came up. When I got home I was too hot to face breakfast, but had to force down some toast just before leaving for work to avoid fainting on the tube. This is most unlike me, usually I am eating within 5 minutes of finishing a run.

I really felt for all the London marathoners on Sunday, running in unseasonable heat. It’s the one thing you can’t do anything about – I saw two elite runners vomit after they crossed the finish line, one of them pretty copiously. Good for her, I thought, there’s no doubt now in anyone’s mind that she gave it her all. The proof is in the puking…

Cherry cheer

I missed out last week’s update so let me do that first: 4 runs, skipping Sunday’s due to hangover/tiredness/laziness*, managing 28 miles with two good hard sessions and one rubbish one.

Tonight was interval day so i ran mine around Regent’s Park – 5 x 1200m at 10k pace with half time recoveries (5 x 5mins fast, with 2.5min recovs). It was ok, not great but not terrible, my legs were still tired from Saturday’s leap for joy.

At the risk of becoming a blossom bore, the cherry trees in the English Garden of the Reg are worth a glance or two. Like nature’s fireworks suspended briefly in full mid-air explosion. Catch them this week or miss out.

* delete nothing- all three applicable

10k or 12 mile?

Ever since I realised that someone I had been calling Tim “Joss” with a hard “J”, actually pronounced his name Tim “Yoss”, I can’t think of my blog without muttering, “not a yogger”. I don’t think I’m a yogger. It does sound like fun though – perhaps involving a yomp through a Danone factory.

Yesterday I yogged a series of 6 km intervals at 10k pace, with recovery periods of half the time. For ease of adding up I went for 4min 20 secs at 10k pace, 2mins 10 secs recovery (6mins 30 secs per set). I ran around Regent’s Park so don’t really know whether I stuck to the pace, however I did note the start and finish locations of my third interval and using mapmyrun I can tell you that it was 1.06km, so that’s pretty damn close.

Having had a fairly hard week last week, including a hefty run on Sunday, my legs were seriously feeling the pain. In total contrast to Sunday, when I felt like my legs were writing cheques my lungs could happily cash, yesterday my whole system was overdrawn and bankruptcy felt imminent at the end of each fast km.

To spin out this spurious metaphor, I have a dilemma for this Sunday: do I keep withdrawing cash from the bank of the “Ryan Hall Training Plan“, and get both a 6 mile tempo run and a 12 mile run under my belt this week, or should I keep the money in the bank and save it up for a Regent’s Park 10k on Sunday morning?

I have free entry to the race, which is the only reason I’m feeling guilty for pulling out, if I’m honest. I’m really enjoying the training plan and don’t want to miss out on this week’s sessions, which I’d have to do if wanted to prepare properly for a race. Also, I don’t want to have to get up early on Sunday morning. I think the 12 miles is just edging ahead…

…Pain. Fear. Aggression…

Well, that was a fun start to the running week. I’m still red-faced at 1.47pm, and I finished the run at 7.45am. It was an interval training run, Marquis-de-Sade-style.

It was hard enough work trying to understand the instructions: “2 miles at 10k pace, 2 x 1 mile at 5k pace, 2 x 800m at slightly faster than 5k pace, with 5 minutes recovery after the 2 mile and 3 minutes recovery after the miles and the 800”.

This took me about 50 minutes in total, on a treadmill, and I summarise my issues with it herewith:

What is 5k pace? I have never run a 5k race, so plumped for 0.5km/h faster than my 10k pace (so 14.5km/h)
Seriously, you think I can run faster than that 5k pace? 15km/h? Ha ha ha.
Turns out I can (just) over one set of 800m, but not over two.
Can we just agree to use EITHER metric measurements OR miles? It is very confusing, as Mr N can confirm having run 0.8 miles instead of 800 metres for his 4th interval.

This run basically translates as a fast 10k race, broken up into pieces and getting harder as you go along. It is really really tough. By the final two intervals my thighs were burning 20 seconds in. It lulls you into a false sense of security with the 3 minute recoveries but do not be fooled, this is not for the faint-hearted.

Spring!

Spring has officially sprung in running world. Yesterday I ran around Regent’s Park after work for the first time this year.

The early blossom is out and hung like frozen confetti in the gloom as I passed the York Gate (this is not my photograph, no sun for me yesterday). Daffodils bobbed their heads in my wake and Greylag Geese blocked the path, staring down their orange beaks at me in an unimpressed fashion.

It was a great run, I am very happy to say. “7 x 800m at 10k pace, recover for half the interval time”, which translated as “fast for 3m 20 secs, slow for 1m 40 secs”. I’m not sure this was mathematically accurate as far as the distance went, but more importantly it made the intervals fit into 5 minute sections, which helped my poor brain cope with knowing when to start and stop.

It’s quite worrying how difficult I find timing myself. I sometimes spend whole runs calculating and re-calculating my speed or pace; maths was never my strong suit. One day I will do what my dad once did and get to mile 12 in a half marathon and be astounded that there is another mile left to run, having missed some mile markers and mis-counted my running speed. All the way along I will think, “this is going so well! this is so easy!”.