Intervals

Three posts in two days? What?!?!  The truth is, I’m trying to post when the tomato processing allows, and tonight is a free night. 😉

On Monday morning, I woke up with a new goal: to get faster. The reason for this is because my next running goal is a pretty big one—I’m running in the Detroit Free Press Marathon Relay this coming October.  And I’m not just running any leg of the relay, mind you…I’m running the last leg of the relay.

Did you happen to catch any of the relay races or swim events of the Olympics the last two weeks? Well, I did, and what I heard during that time was the announcers go on and on about the “anchor” leg or the “glory” leg of the relay, which is the last leg.  And usually when they did that, they rhapsodized about how the person who was participating in that leg is always the fastest, strongest, most awesome person on the team.  In fact, if you look up “anchor leg” on Wikipedia, you’ll see this definition: “Typically, the anchor leg of a relay is given to the fastest or most experienced competitor on a team.”

Yeah, well…that’s not me.

Truly, I just fell into this particular position, because someone else decided to run the full marathon instead of just the relay.  While I was truly honored to be given this opportunity, I can’t deny that I was also pretty nervous.  Then I watched the Olympics and my nervousness began to border on sheer terror. 😛

So, with all that in mind, I have decided that I need to improve my pace as much as I can between now and October 21^st so that I can at least try to make my team proud. 🙂  To help me in this goal, I solicited the advice of my friend Renee, an experienced marathon runner.  She explained to me what “interval” training was.  I had heard the term before but had never actually looked it up.  Basically, it’s interspersing periods or “intervals” of very fast running within an otherwise “easy” run.

Renee suggested I start off with 1 mile of warm-up at average pace.  Then I would do 4 quarter-mile “sprints” as fast as I could possibly go, with 2 minutes of walking in between each sprint.  Then, to finish, I would do a mile run at an easy or “cool-down” pace.

This all seemed pretty complicated to me, and I was feeling a bit daunted, but I am determined to become faster, so I sat down with my Garmin software to figure out how to make it work with my watch.  To my surprise and delight, I found that the software actually has an “interval” feature.  I sat down and plotted it all out online, and when I was done, it was all nicely color-coded and organized.

Just looking at it made my Type-A personality smile. 😉 Until I tried to actually download it to my watch.

WTH?!  Even when I clicked OK, it wouldn’t download…grrr.  BUT, because I am both resourceful and desperate, I played around on the actual watch itself and, although it was tricky and time-consuming, I got it set up!  I felt tremendously accomplished at that point, and I hadn’t even put my shoes on yet. 😉

I did my “warm up” mile at about a 10:28 pace.  Not too hard, but not a cakewalk either.  When I got to a mile, my watch beeped and said, “Run faster—NOW!!”  Okay, not really—it just told me my interval had started, so I ran as fast as I possibly could for a quarter mile. I really pushed myself, which felt both good and awful at the same time, lol. I was doing so great, and then, just as I got to where my quarter mile would end, I wound up at the main road, where a car was coming in perfect sync to hit me! So, I had to slow down and then stop. Argh! But, it didn’t affect my pace too much since it was right at the end.

I walked for two minutes, which was desperately needed, and then I took off again when my watch beeped.  Once again, I ran for my life. 😉 I found it harder this time, but I pushed on.  My pace was actually a little better (no doubt since I didn’t have to stop at the end this time).

Another walk break, and by that time, I was getting tired. I was honestly ready to be done at the point, but I pushed on and did the third interval.  So. Hard.  I pushed as much as I could, but I was definitely running out of gas at this point.  I was really happy to walk after this one. By that time, though, I was having a really, really hard time psyching myself up for the final quarter-mile.  I just kept telling myself it was only a quarter-mile, and I didn’t have to go all-out for it if I couldn’t.

When the watch beeped, I sprinted one last time, and I can honestly say it was the hardest run of my life.  I went as hard and as fast as I could, but it wasn’t nearly as fast as my first three.  I kept looking at the countdown, .13 left, .10 left, .07, .04—OMG, would I ever be done?!  Finally—FINALLY—I was done, and let me tell you, I enjoyed that walk more than any other walk I have ever done in my entire life. 😉

Once that 2 minutes was over, my watch beeped and told me it would be in cool down mode until I pushed the reset button.  So, of course, because I’m Garmin-challenged, I immediately hit the reset button.  It then started beeping all cheerfully and even gave me a “Workout finished!” message—yes, complete with exclamation point. 😛 Even though I was mad at myself for once again screwing up my nice, pretty stats, I couldn’t help but laugh at the Garmin’s enthusiasm. 😉

I reset my watch and then ran the last mile home.  When I started, I would have sworn to you that my pace had to be in the twelves, because I was so tired, I refused to push myself at all.  I was quite surprised to find, however, that I was actually in the tens! I guess that’s the point of interval training—compared to your intervals, your “average” run suddenly seems easy. 😀

Here’s how it all shook out…

 

 

 

 

I cannot deny that it was very hard, but when I was done, I felt extremely accomplished.  🙂  I mean, who knew I could run a 7:48 pace for even a quarter mile?  And I must admit I did like the fact that I had TEN whole splits, lol. 😉

Truthfully, I find that I’m rather looking forward to next week’s interval, if only to see if I can make the Garmin website’s pretty color-coded bars work. 😉

Thanks so much for reading!