I have the good fortune of being able to ride with friend and pro-triathlete Rosalyn Rombauer when I make it over to Western Washington. The newly-minted TriNW Champion routinely incorporates intervals on the track, and this recently served her quite well in a dominating victory at the inaugural TriRock Seattle olympic distance race (where she Chrissie'd the field and chicked just about everyone). We were talking about ways to improve my training, and with honest self-reflection, I realized that I was running all too often at a moderate or easy tempo. "In order to race fast, you have to train fast," she counciled me, "you need to run intervals."
With my history - albeit a lackluster one - in middle-distance track and cross country, I was quite familiar with the ways of the interval and happily took her advice.
After a couple recovery days following last weekend's Chelanman olympic-distance triathlon, I headed over to my Alma Mater's track for some interval work. After a 20min warm-up run around the beautiful campus and through the surrounding woods, I jogged down to the track for some light stretching and a few drills (eg. skipping, butt-kicks, high-knees, strides). At Chelanman, I was pleased to hold 6:35min/mi pace during the 10km run, so I set the pace for today's intervals at a modest 6:00min/mi. I ran that pace for the following intervals, with 400-600 yards of active recovery between each (active recovery is the cool way of saying I was jogging around the track between each interval). The simple set was 400-600-800-200, then 200 at a faster pace and a 100 "all-out" sprint. The set took just 20min and I was off to the pool for an easy swim.
My next interval set will likely be in the same pyramid fashion, but more extensive, such as 400-600-800-1000-1200-800-200-200. Remember that these are intense workouts, and they are best incorporated somewhat gradually, allowing for their placement in the week to permit sufficient recovery.
Overall it was a very rewarding session and a great addition to the current week's focus of threshold training before I taper for my next race (the Troika half-iron).
To learn more about Ros' racing exploits, check out her awesome blog, at http://bosalynbombauer.blogspot.com/ .
oh man, you are making me blush ;)! Yea, but doing intervals/ speedwork, (I wouldn't want to do more than an hour personally, which includes mile warm up and mile cool down, as adding more intervals would seem unnecessary) is def the way you are going to get fast! I learned that from Ryan Vanderloop @ http://www.corporesanocoaching.com - who has taught me wisely, and I have not injured myself due to his expertise (as many can injure themselves easily through misguided training)! But, Derek, you are already too fast, I already don't want to race against you, as you will probably be making me poop my pants trying to chase you down running! You know you always have a training partner in seattle ;). Thanks for the kudos!
ReplyDelete