intervals

Podcast: Episode 6 – De-mystifying types of running training

Zoey · May 25, 2016 ·

Tempos, Fartleks, Intervals! And what about low heart rate and base training?

Today we are talking about types of training. It can be hard with all of the jargon out there.

Here is a guide we put together on running jargon that might help you out too. And we also talk a bit about Run Club, which you can find more about here.

We start with some basics about low heart rate training and base training and why they are different. And we get into some specifics of what is easy, what is tempo and how to tell if you are running intervals fast enough. Most people naturally drift towards the middle and run their easy too fast and their fast too slow, so it’s all about getting the most out of your training.

And the big thing we talk about is about why speedwork, really has nothing to do with speed and everything to do with developing aerobic capacity.

Head over to iTunes to listen (and subscribe!)

You can listen and download episodes in Itunes here.

Workout of the Week: Ladder Intervals

Zoey · October 26, 2015 · Leave a Comment

Ladder intervals are a great workout for mental toughness. Because the intervals get shorter and shorter you are aiming for the pace of each one to be quicker than the one before, which is where the mental toughness comes in! Ideally you would jog the recoveries but you can absolutely walk the recoveries if you need to.

This run totals 6km so if you are newer to running – halve the intervals and do:

600m fast, 200m recovery

500m fast, 200m recovery

400m fast, 200m recovery

300m fast, 200m recovery

200m fast, 200m recovery

And that will give you a 3km workout.

Happy running!

Workout of the Week: Hammer Intervals

Zoey · August 31, 2015 · Leave a Comment

The key to the hammer intervals is that the fast sections are run at your long interval pace and the hammer intervals are a sprint. So it helps if you have an idea of your paces for different workouts. But the difference is about 90% effort for the fast interval and 100% effort for the hammer interval. The fast interval is faster than tempo, but it’s not an all out sprint. So it is something that you would want to be able to hold for around 1.6km (although here you are only doing it for 300m).

This workout is great for improving your short distance running and mimicking the demands put on your body on race day.

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How to swap a workout you hate for one that you love

OperationMove · August 13, 2014 · 8 Comments

It’s no secret that I’m a lover of easy runs. There’s no time pressure. I can walk a bit if I want. I can take a photo. I can pop into Facebook and have a chat for a bit if I want. It’s a pressure free run. Even more than easy runs, I love long runs. That’s what I live for. Although the long training runs for a marathon certainly take it out of me, I look forward to it all week. And when I’m done, I often feel like I could go for a bit longer, because I just love long distance.

There are other runs that I do because they benefit my long running but I’m not necessarily keen. I accept that they are a necessary evil.

Like Intervals. And Tempo.

It’s also probably the case that I like those two types of runs even less because where I live is quite hilly and there is nothing overly enjoyable about running intervals uphill.

But what I have found is that if you get a bit creative you can find a running workout with the same benefit that you don’t hate with the fire of a thousand suns.

Tempo

Plenty of people love their tempo runs, but for me I find them a bit of a struggle because there’s no real relief point. It’s just maintaining the same reasonably hard pace for whatever the distance is and mentally I find them to be a bit of a struggle. But I have found a couple of things that help me with this:

Fartlek – Fartlek can give you the same benefits of Tempo without actually doing Tempo. Now traditionally Fartlek is an unstructured mix of speed, steady and easy running but some of us are just too structured for that kind of thing. So here are the main two Fartlek-inspired runs that I do.

5:2 – 6 repats of 5:00 hard running by 2:00 steady running
Pyramid – 3:00, 4:00, 6:00, 8:00, 6:00, 4:00, 3:00 hard running with 1:00 of recovery running in between.

Intervals

Also not my favourite. Particularly long intervals. Long intervals are hard to pace for, especially once you throw hills into the mix. My solution to this has been a couple of things

Run to heart rate – instead of picking a pace and saying this is the pace I have to do, I do it to heart rate zone so that the effort is consistent, even if I can’t manage a consistent pace up and down hills.

Shorter intervals – Sure I could kill myself on long intervals, but long intervals aren’t going to help me if I don’t do them. So I mix it up with plenty of shorter intervals. At the moment my favourite is the 400m progression run. Which is 5 x 400m sprint, 400m, steady, 400m fast, 400m recovery. Now that is fun!

The moral of the story? There’s usually a way to make what you do not like to do, fun!