For some reason I had originally determined that this would be a recovery week. Well, I know the reason – I blindly followed the original schedules from the Brain Training book, and this week just happened to be one of the easy ones. It only occurred to me yesterday that it would have made a lot more sense to have the previous week as an easy week, to aid my recovery from the race. Ah well. Feeling really stupid is a powerful motivator to remember your mistakes and avoid them next time.
I decided to deviate from the schedule this week. I didn’t fancy today’s mixed intervals even though the recovery-inspired easier version of the usual workout didn’t look too daunting. I just wanted a change. I had recently read something about Veronique Billat, and decided to run her 30/30 workout today. I know perfectly well that doing this type of workout just once isn’t going to bring a lot of improvements. I just fancied a different kind of speedwork to keep things more interesting, and that’s the one that sounded appealing.
The above websites mentioned that 20 intervals would be normal, so I programmed the Garmin for 22 and gave myself permission to call it quits earlier. It was a strange workout, hard and easy at the same time. Hard because running so much at mile race pace is tough, and easy because 30 seconds are always manageable, even when you’re already knackered. In the end I did the entire 22 intervals, and probably could have done a couple more. The average pace was 5:35, which is better than expected. All in all, I was pleased.
And my homemade blackberry ice cream (made from self-picked blackberries, of course) is divine. I just thought I should mention that, for no reason other than to make you jealous.
- 22 Sep
- 8 miles, 1:03:05, 7:53 pace, HR 139
- 23 Sep
- 7 miles, 54:17, 7:45 pace, HR 149
22 x 30/30 @ 5:35 avg.
Homemade ice cream!! Definitely very jealous here. That was an interesting workout to shake up the legs. You may feel it in the morning though I think.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with getting your mornings settled down! The ice cream sounds wonderful - nice way to fuel those workouts!
ReplyDeleteSo, do you think you will continue with the 30/30s? I would have trouble with the 'half that speed' part - not very good at gauging speed.
ReplyDeleteI guess you'll have to wake a little earlier for a while.
Oh, set an extra place at the table, I'll be over for some ice cream tonight.
Thomas, being a "more acomplished runner", I thought you'd go for the 60/60 workout or even the 180/180 given your propensity for pushing the limits.
ReplyDeleteThat blackberry ice-cream sounds delicious.
I don't understand your 5:35 average,
ReplyDeletethat means you ran a just ran a 17:20 (=3.1*5:35)
for 5k.
If you are running 38:02 for 10k then
http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/cgi-bin/calculations.pl
gives the equivalent 5k as 18:18
You mean 5:35 pace for the fast 30s? Then, a 'float' recovery for the slow ones?
ReplyDeleteAlways good to try something different. As long as you don't have to look at the Garmin too much ;)
Ewen, Greg,
ReplyDeleteof course the "average" only averages the 22 fast segments, not the recoveries in-between. I could have formulated it better, admittedly.