A Good Test of Intervals

Today was a bit of a rushed day, though it seems like most of them are at the moment. After a busy day at work I had to take off a bit early for a dentists appointment. It was not pleasant in any way, shape, or form, but I will spare you all the details. I have to go back next week for another session, though I was promised that it wouldn't be either as lengthy or as painful as today's.

The good news was that I was back home in time to go for a run before the madness that is rounding up the troops for baseball practice (this time Malcolm's). I'd been looking forward to trying out some intervals and since I encouraged Monica to do some 400m repeats last night I figured I should subject myself to a similar workout.

I ran a nice warm up on the way to the track and found it to be almost completely empty save for a lacrosse team that was just finishing practice. I put down my water bottle and started into the 6 sets of 400m intervals, which I was planning to run at between 1:28 and 1:32. I pulled those times out of the McMillan Running Calculator based on my dream 5k finishing time of 20:00. I don't actually think I have a shot at going into the teens for the 5k, but I thought that the intervals looked achievable. Given that I was only planning on six of them, and that I remember doing a set last year where my times were about 1:37 for the 400s, I didn't think that I would hurt myself too badly if I pushed it a bit faster. I was a bit short on time so I didn't do the 400m recovery jog that I remember doing and opted for a simple 1 minute recovery while sipping from the water bottle that I had brought. The intervals ended up looking like this:

1. 1:29 (pace: 3:40/km, 5:54/mile)
2. 1:25 (pace: 3:31/km, 5:40/mile)
3. 1:27 (pace: 3:34/km, 5:45/mile)
4. 1:25 (pace: 3:31/km, 5:40/mile)
5. 1:26 (pace: 3:32/km, 5:42/mile)
6. 1:25 (pace: 3:31/km, 5:40/mile)

Needless to say this was a success! It hurt like hell from the third repetition on, and the headwind I had to run into on the homestretch became more of an obstacle to overcome with each 400. I also found that I ran about 10 - 15 metres past the line where I started each rep in order to get the Garmin to register 400. I guess that means that my intervals, if the track is to be trusted as being an authoritative 400m, likely were a second or two faster than the above times indicate. I must admit that I am suprised with my ability to complete these intervals, and as hard as these workouts are I really do like them. As long as my body doesn't completely disintegrate I would like to do one interval workout per week throughout the summer. There's nothing like the feeling of getting a really good workout, and long runs, as hard as they are in their own way, cannot be compared to a good set of repeats that set your heart racing. Hopefully this is just the start for me and I'd like to do longer and harder interval workouts in the future.

After the sets I jogged easily home. The total for today added up to 6km and took me 28:27 of moving time to complete (not counting the 5 rest intervals, of course). The average pace for the entire run was 4:43/km, though I wonder if that matters at all in this sort of a workout. My heart rate peaked at 180bpm, and at the end of each minute of rest it always went back down into the 130s, which was good.

Garmin don't lie.