Although accurate, the time for these three miles is a little misleading. After thoroughly enjoying changing up my workouts over the past couple of weeks, I decided to try something different, yet again. With only a week to go before my official marathon training begins, I wanted to get a feel for what else might make a good workout for me so that I can stick to the training schedule while also mixing things up from time to time. Today's plan was to mix in some intervals.
It's been so many years since I've done any kind of real training... any time I've run since high school, it's just been plain old running. Since I wanted to make sure my hip was up for it, I ran my first mile at a comfortable pace (6.2 mph), then took a quick break for a little more stretching. Back on the treadmill, I decided to try this... I went with my comfortable pace (6.2 mph) for two-tenths of a mile, then bumped the speed up to 9 mph for one-tenth and back down to 6.2 for two-tenths. I repeated this five times with my last fast-paced tenth of a mile ending 2.5 miles into my run and ran the last half mile at 6.2 mph.
This made for a very interested workout. I loved the way it felt to push myself a little harder and not allow myself to come to a complete stop to catch my breath. I'm sure this will come in handy on marathon day as it's my goal to not only finish, but hopefully to do it without walking. And while I have no intention of sprinting during the middle of the marathon, I do feel like pushing myself in the middle or at the end of a workout makes a long distance run seem that much easier... it should certainly be easier to keep a steady pace than it is to throw in sprints from time to time. I guess I'll see how I feel about my crazy training techniques when I actually complete the marathon.
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