Thursday, July 05, 2007

A good compromise

Last night it was Wednesday night at the track, i.e., VO2max intervals of some sort. When in aerobic training in the past I have skipped these and gone into Yoyogi Park and tootled around at below LT pace. Got an email from Gareth in the afternoon asking what my plans were for the evening and I said I wasn't sure. Track is more fun and interesting, but I have started aerobic base building so want to avoid running above lactate accumulation pace.

After a 5 km warmup in the park we headed to the track (at which point the drizzly rain decided to get a bit more serious). With none of the regular leaders in attendance, Gareth took over the podium and stop watch and announced we would do 5 x 1200 on a 7-minute cycle. I decided to run them at a lower intensity than I would if it was a full-on interval session, thus they became what McMillan calls cruise intervals (4:26 to 4:32/1200 for me).

Rather than think about pace too much I just said I'd try to not let my heart rate get much above 160. As it turned out, that gave me a set of times just a bit on the slow side of McMillan's suggested range. They were pretty comfortable to run and I was even talking a little bit during a couple of them. So I did one more for good luck. Final result: 4:40, 4:38, 4:33, 4:31, 4:34, 4:31. Full log entry here.

1 comment:

Ewen said...

Very disciplined Steve - I'm impressed.

I've become a convert to non-lactic intervals - especially over winter when it's so cold and miserable you just want to keep moving.

I love having the running dictated by the HRM and knowing in advance that the session won't hurt. The following day you feel totally normal and not stiff at all. Brilliant!