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Wednesday 6 March 2013

Week 12, Day 2: 5 x 1600 in 7 min/miles ... maths fail


Week 12, Day 2



Goal: 5 x 1600 in 7 min/miles starting every 9 mins (8 miles total)

Actual: 4 x 1600 in 7 min/miles starting every 9 mins …. Maths fail ...And 1 x 1392m in 6:36 min/mile (8.2 miles total)



Today’s session was in 2 parts owing to the fact I ran out of lunch hour. An hour seems like such a long time to get 5 miles of intervals in but when you add up the time taken to get these done it’s surprising:


Time to leave desk, sign out and get to car: 2 mins

Time to drive to gym: 4 mins (yes I know I should be walking as it’s that close … but short on time, remember?)

Time to wrestle gym bag out of car boot, find gym pass and get through the turnstile: 2 mins


Time to get changed, visit loo, find £1 for the locker, find a place to put the key: 8 mins



That’s almost 15 minutes of faffing … and I have to do that all in reverse again when I’ve finished at the gym. Plus have a shower and dry hair. In fact … how do I ever get a chance to fit a run in?

Managed to get in 3 of the 5 mile intervals at 7 min/miles starting every 9 mins. Had a 3 minute warm up too. Only meant to have a 2 min warmup but I’m blaming a chatty friend on the treadmill next to me …



Distance: 3.44 miles

Time: 29:01

Made it back to work with 1 minute to spare ….




Plus sides of treadmill work: The treadmills are in front of a mirror which can be a bit disorienting, but which gave me the perfect opportunity to work on my form. Both Steve and Sam have mentioned that I hunch my shoulders and don’t move them as smoothly as I should.

I used the 30 mins on the treadmill to practise how I moved my arms. Sam gave me a tip at the bootcamp day which was to put all my shoulder weight into my elbows and pretend I was putting my elbows into egg cups. I also had a play with cadence and stride speed which is easier to do on the treadmill as you don’t have to look out for kerbs and extendable dog leads.

Although I feel that doing intervals on the treadmill is cheating a bit, at least I managed to get some useful form work done at the same time.



Part 2:

Did the other half of the workout outside when I could fit it in after work, settling the 3 year old and teatimes ... so 10:40pm.

Distance: 4.76 mi

Time: 39:04



Laps


Mile 1  8:44 min/mile
Mile 2  8:53 min/mile
Mile 3  6:57 min/mile – sub 7 interval
Interval of 2 mins walking for 0.13 mile
Mile 4 … and this is where it all went wrong! I pressed the lap button and didn’t stop to consider it didn’t start the mile again … so I was 0.13m short for the last interval …
‘Mile’ 4 6:36 min/mile
0.76 mile cooldown at 8:48 min/mile



6 comments:

  1. why not use the handy workout function on your Garmin and preset all your rests and such? i used to do that a lot then forgot to do until i started reading your blog now i have loads in there

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    Replies
    1. I really need to get sorted and do that - it would definitely be really handy with all of the intervals I've got coming up. Do I need to do this in the Training Centre on the computer?

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  2. you can do it on the watch but its a lot harder, people still using the training centre? i tend to use Garmin Connect more, but its a lot easier to do on the computer than on the watch itself.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll have to make sure I do that. I've got quite a few runs where I've got a mile warmup and then into the proper run and it's such a pain having to stop and reset everything ...! Thanks! :)

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  3. working like a trojan my friend, well done :)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Paul. Can't believe I'm getting towards the end of the training. When I started it, it felt like SUCH a long time to go!!

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