Can't go to Disneyland? Go for a run instead!

Final grades for graduating law students were due today, and while I wouldn't get fired or anything if I missed the deadline, I'm one of those dutiful rule followers. Of course, to prepare myself for the last day of grading, I did an 8-mile speed session (9 x 1/2 mile reps @ 6:30 pace) this morning. Then I worked my way steadily through the last two exam questions in my upper division course, compiled overall exam results on my spreadsheet, set the curve, and emailed the grade sheet for both spring courses (I had finished the other course earlier) and all independent study papers to the Registrar's Office.

GRADING IS DONE!

Now, this is what I felt like proclaiming:

But alas, I haven't lived in Southern California in a l-o-n-g time. So I did the next best thing, which is, I went for an easy recovery run in the sunshine. I suppose that might seem a bit excessive, given the morning speed session, but I just love running. 26 minutes, three miles . . . yeah, that's the ticket.

Variety is the spice of running

Today was supposed to be a speed session but I didn't feel like running repetitions, so I changed things up and did a threshold run instead. A true threshold run should last about 20 minutes, according to running coach Jack Daniels, but I ended up splitting mine into two ~10 minute segments, separated by an easy mile at an 8:35 pace.

Per the Daniels/Run SMART pace calculator, my threshold pace based on my most recent 5K race is 7:11. Now, I didn't actually look this up before running; I just went to the gym and picked what seemed like the right pace. (Yes, it was a gorgeous day today, but I haven't watched "Justified" in a while....) And that was 7:13 for the first threshold, and 7:08 for the second one - and those average to 7:11!

What I've noticed is that I feel like I've accomplished more in a speed session when I jog the recovery intervals instead of walking them. 8:35 is somewhere around my long run pace (sometimes I'm slower if it's especially hilly), so it's an easy pace, but I wouldn't have thought of it as a pace that I could manage while recovering from 10 minutes of a threshold pace, yet it was. Cool deal!

Anyway, this ended up being not that different from repetitions, only it was two 1.5 mile reps, but it didn't seem that way when I was running it because I was thinking to myself "threshold run," not "repetitions." So perhaps it's true that variety is the spice of running.

Progress!

When I started running back at the beginning of 2011, it was a struggle to finish a mile in 10 minutes. Two miles? Forget about it.

I'm no cheetah now, but it's a tangible sign of progress that, despite being closer to age 50 than 40 (there's a reassuring thought....), I ran 1/4 mile repetitions today at sub-6:30 pace, with recovery intervals of 1/8 mile at a 10:00 pace. That's right, what was once my goal pace is now an easy enough pace that it allows me to recover from a repetition that's faster than my 5K pace. (I suppose this may be overly ambitious, but perhaps one day, my recovery pace will be 8:00....)

So, today's run was a warm-up mile @ 8:35 pace, and then 12 x 1/4 mile repetitions with 1/8 mile jog recovery @ 10:00, and then a cool down 1/2 mile @ 8:35 pace. The first eight repetitions were @ 6:22 pace (i.e., 9.4 speed on the treadmill), then two @ 6:11 (9.7 speed), and the last two @ 6:00 (10 speed).

Total time was 46:40 for six miles. This is another indicator of progress, as my interval workouts used to average around 9 min/mile because of long recoveries. I suppose I could run faster repetitions and walk the recoveries, but I feel like this is a more effective approach, and one study sort of agrees.

When interval repetitions go well....

Okay, I'm nowhere near as fast as a cheetah (at least, for short distances - I don't think they run for more than 1/4 mile or so), but interval training is as close as I come to that feeling of pure speed, even more than races, since I run interval repetitions at faster than 5K pace.

Today would've been a good day to run at the track since the schedule called for speed work (hence, no TV), but after yesterday's near half marathon (12.2 miles on hilly roads), I figured I could benefit from the softer surface of the treadmill.

After a short warm up of a mile at an 8:35 pace, I got to work on 1/4 mile repetitions. The advantage of the treadmill is that you can set the pace precisely and consistently, and I alternated between 1/4 miles at 6:18 pace (the repetition) and 10:00 pace (the recovery) ten times, and than upped the repetition pace to 6:00 for the last two.

As Ms. 2Cups'NRun notes, running interval repetitions on the treadmill is easier in some ways than outside, because all you have to do is keep up. Of course, it's easier to say "keep up" than it is actually to do it, but it's even harder to force yourself to maintain a given pace. Thus, she writes:

I don’t know if this is an issue only I have, but my Garmin is not great at giving me the exact instant pace I’m running. The splits are perfect it seems, but if I look at my watch at any given time, especially if I recently changed my speed, the display of instant pace is quite off. I tried to go by feel, and for fear of running slower than I had planned, I ended up not only running faster, but each interval is not even similar to the previous one.

Her intervals were on the road, every 500 meters by a Garmin stopwatch. Maybe the track makes for easier interval training, because you can see exactly how much distance you have left to go. On the track, all I use is a digital watch with a timer/split function. It doesn't have GPS and thus can't give my pace, but I can do the math pretty easily in my head about elapsed time at the 1/8 and 3/8 mile marks.

Having an idea about pace is one thing; keeping it up on your own internal motivation is another. This is where the track is much harder than the treadmill. If you slow down a little - and when it comes to 1/4 mile, even a small slowdown is going to reflect in the ultimate pace (after all, just 5 seconds slower on a 1/4 mile translates to a full 20 seconds for a mile) - nothing is going to make you speed up except your own willpower.

With that in mind, it seems to me that speed workouts on the treadmill aren't just about keeping up with the pace that you input into the machine. They're about working on form, cadence, breathing, and the general feeling of being in control (as opposed to staggering to the end of the repetition). By that measure, today's speed workout was a success. Even though the last half of each repetition was hard, I never felt like I was struggling to complete the lap, and my form during the recovery intervals felt good. (Kind of weird to think that when I started running, a 10 minute/mile pace was exhausting, and now it's the pace that let's me recover for another ~6:00 pace 1/4 mile....)