Running Intervals
I am happy to say that I have had another excellent weeks running for week 7 of the Chi Running Half Marathon running training program which included a 5k race, the first 5k I've run in 4 years! It's nice to dip my toe in the water and I shall run more of them this year to see where I am with my pain-free running training.
Today's running session on the plan was an interval session 800x5 with 2 minute recoveries. For the last 2 weeks, I have done these in the park using my Garmin to work out the distances. We have had a lot of heavy rain here in the UK recently and my usual interval loop was waterlogged so I headed to the track.
It was a beautiful crisp sunny day. Running the mile or so to the track served as my warm up. During the session I was using focus pairs; one which I find difficult and one I find easy. These were specific to this type of workout such as increase lean, lengthen stride etc. After the first 400, I switched focus pair for the second 400. In the first couple of reps, I could body sense an increase in my cadence as I picked up speed so I turned on my metronome to work on lengthening my stride instead. The low sunlight cast some great shadows over the track to give me valuable feedback on my form. As I worked my way through the reps, I tried to relax more as that shadow told me I looked tight and not as fluid as I should. All in all, this was an excellent workout and I can see improvements in speed week on week. I will continue to do these at the track going forward.
Although I was at the track, I still used my Garmin as the beep for each rep served as a good reminder to switch focuses.
When your running technique is such that you feel that you can be running injury free, I highly recommend this workout to practise running in different gears, maintain the same running cadence and to teach you how to relax.
Happy running.
Michelle
good post