Archives for November 2015

Workout of the Week: Break Through

Zoey · November 30, 2015 · Leave a Comment

This week’s workout is all about digging deep and finding some speed when you are fatigued. You want to think of everything as just a bit of an increase in effort –

Easy Running: 70% Effort
Steady Running: 75% effort
Tempo (Aerobic Threshold): 85% effort
Threshold (Anaerobic Threshold): 90% effort
As Fast As You can (Anaerobic Capacity): 95%+

To get an idea of the pacing, if you have a 5k PB of 30:00 the paces would look like this:

Easy: 7:15 min/km
Steady: 6:45 min/km
Tempo: 6:15 min/km
Threshold: 5:45 min/km
Capacity: 5:15 min/km

This will differ for everyone, but it will help to give you an idea. You don’t need to be pedantic about it, just make sure that you are increasing your effort level for each interval.

Happy Running!

We are approaching the most glorious eating day of the year. Don’t ruin it.

Zoey · November 27, 2015 · 1 Comment

It’s only four weeks until Christmas which means already the food shaming has started. IT’S HERE. There are actual infographics on how many minutes you have to run to negate your roast dinner. ACTUAL INFOGRAPHICS. And whether they are a traditional roast meal with calories pointing to every last one, or a chart of donuts based on how far you’ve run or pumpkin pie. Hey guys, if you run a marathon you get whipped cream with your pumpkin pie. And helpful little tweets from elite runners telling you that you better go off and have that run before you eat.

JUST NO.

Let’s not do this.

For starters it’s a whole pile of crap because calories burned will vary depending on your weight. And how much you want to consume daily depends on your general level of activity as well as your metabolism and your goals. If you have a kick ass metabolism and are living well above the 1,200 calorie line of where happiness goes to die, then your calorie counting days are probably well behind you.

But even aside from basic logic or science, let’s just not.

This is just an example of everything that is wrong with everything. If I picked up almost any magazine aimed at women in fitness or running there would be practically no headlines related to fitness or running but I would get some helpful tips on how to be sexier, get abs in five days and finally achieve my dream of a bikini body. Well, it’s not my dream. Because that kind of achievement is pretty meaningless. Will I be able to run faster or further, will I be stronger? None of those things actually impact on my fitness or strength or endurance.

And once you set up appearance as the most important thing then it’s really easy to fall into the trap of exercise being punishment for food. And then you ruin the glorious time of year that is Christmas and New Year. A few days enjoying some of the most awesome food ever is not going to derail your nutrition goals or your fitness goals, but if you buy into this load of crap it might rob you of joy or zest for life or the will to live.

But the worst part is, it might take away some of your joy of running or lifting or moving. You might forget why you do this. You can’t put a calorie number on a run and define it in such meaningless terms. And it is totally meaningless. If I looked up my run today I could find out how many calories I burned: 809. Which let’s get real, I didn’t burn that many calories. My body is used to running, it is highly efficient at running, I don’t need an extra 800 calories in food today because I went for a run. And what does 809 tell me? Does it tell me about the ducks I saw out for a walk this morning? Does it tell me about the moon I saw at sunrise? Does it tell me how I totally aced my pacing (which I’ve been struggling with)? Does it tell me anything at all about how going for a run makes me feel purposeful and alive and home?

It does not.
Pass the cream.

Workout of the Week: The Double Pyramid

Zoey · November 23, 2015 · Leave a Comment

This workout all up is 34 minutes plus your warm up and cool down time and it is a pretty demanding one. And although there are differences between the paces, they aren’t as far apart as you might think. So for me half marathon pace would be about 5:15, 10k pace about 5:00 and 5k pace about 4:45. So if you go out too fast in the shorter intervals as you get into the workout it’s going to hurt you – definitely one to pay attention to your pacing on! If you aren’t sure what your pacing should be here is a a pace calculator to help guide you.

If you are newer to running you could just do one pyramid:

1:00 @ 5k race pace, 1:00 recovery jog

2:00 @ 10k race pace, 2:00 recovery jog

3:00 @ half marathon race pace, 3:00 recovery jog

2:00 @ 10k race pace, 2:00 recovery jog

1:00 @ 5k race pace, 1:00 recovery jog

And doing one period can be a great way to get a feel for your pacing as well. You want to finish feeling like you maybe could do one more interval but not two more. And remember that the better you warm up, the more you will enjoy these types of workouts!

Happy running!

Workout of the Week: The Pickup

Zoey · November 16, 2015 · Leave a Comment

Wait for it. This is an unstructured workout. I KNOW. Ordinarily I’m all about structure and it is for this reason that you are unlikely to find me going for a run to ‘see what happens’. But removing some structure can do some great things for you. A few months ago I was doing intervals based on heart rate and because of that I had no idea what my pace was during the interval which is unusual for me. And because of that I ended up going way faster than I would have thought possible. Sometimes if we have an idea of a pace in our head that we are going to aim for, we just aren’t going to go faster than that. And if we happen to be slower than that for whatever reason, we tend to feel like we didn’t do well. But in fact, regardless of the pace if the effort was there the workout has given you what you need.

So the idea of this is to go out for an easy run (make sure you are warmed up first) and at varying points run 1:00 fast and then recover for a bit (but give yourself at least 2:00 before doing another one), and then go again until you’ve done eight intervals at a faster pace.

The beauty of this run is you can treat those fast intervals as REALLY fast, or you can treat them as just a bit faster than your easy pace – so it can be a pretty cruisey run or a really hard workout depending on what you feel like doing.

Happy running!

Workout of the Week: The Sandwich

Zoey · November 2, 2015 · Leave a Comment

For anyone who gets bored with holding one pace on a tempo run, then this one is for you. This is 36 minutes in total, with a few rest periods which makes it ideal for new and experienced runners.

Instead of the usual recoveries which ware walked or jogged, these rest periods are actual rest periods.

This one is great for speed and endurance. Doing speed work in between tempo efforts is challenging but they are short enough that you will feel great by the end of it.

Happy running!