Mid-week Run - 18km (first attempt at speedwork in ages)

dannewton just finished a 18.25km run, that lasted for 120 minutes.
This run helped dannewton burn 1374.0 calories.

---

Description from Strava: I'm rapidly running out of time today!

I blame the lack of time due to being told I had to man the office phone at short notice, which meant instead of a prompt finish at 4pm, I had to stay logged in until 5pm

that extra hour made all the difference

As quick as I could, I shut everything down, changed into my running gear, and headed outside. I've mentioned in the previous post that I was planning to try fitting some speedwork into todays session. I've spent the last 12 months mostly running slowly, and the last 4 months very very slowly. I'm now pretty pleased with my current 'aerobic base' and thinks its high time I tried some different sessions.

I had initially planned to run down to Navenby and back. Its a simple, mostly flat route, and I was just going to pick some random moments to go at a faster pace, and then slow down to an easy pace between these.

The problem with that was I wasn't sure how long it was going to take me, or if I was going to struggle for time (as I needed to home at reasonable time so I could squeeze some food in and then phone my partner for a catch up.

Instead I decided to change the plan at the last minute. I follow some local runners on Strava, mostly as I often see the same faces running around, but its also a good opportunity to see where they run, and get some ideas for routes. Once a week a group of them appear to run intervals around a loop around a housing estate, like above.

Its obvious why, the road is flat, easily accesible, and quiet in the evenings, so a good place to do repeat intervals. Some of those intervals that they run look super complicated so I decided to make it as simple as possible

Quite simply, I planned to run 3/4 of the loop at a casual, easy pace, and then on the last straight section I would pick up the pace and run as fast as I could comfortably run* until I came to the end of the road.

*comfortable means fast, but at a pace that I could maintain for the whole stretch

With the loop being approx 0.84km, I would try to do 6 loops which would make for a total of 5km of intervals. I then warmed up with a 5km lap around the village, and the cool down was another lap of the village.

The plan meant that my session was more focues then I had originally planned, but also I was close to home so I could easily cut the session short if I was struggling for pace (or time).

And as you can see in the above chart, the planned session went well. The top blue line is pace, the slow bits are approx 6:20 - 6:40 minutes per km, the 6 fast spikes were all around 3:45 to 4:00 mins per km. The third spike is a little higher as I went to 3:20 pace, and wasn't able to hold it for the full length of the repetition. That was too quick!

The red line is my heart rate, which shows a corresponding increase as my pace increased. The purple line is my cadence (steps per minute) which also increased up to 205spm at the peak.

I was toying with doing more reps, but after the 6th one I knew I had done enough, and eased into a gentle plod for the rest of the run. Besides, there will be time to add reps next time

...and I will be doing it again, I was pretty pleased with how the session turned out.

For the people knowing about the 80/20 principle I'm trying out, this session is mostly the 20% hard effort for this week. The rest of my miles this week will be much slower and easier

I did just about manage to get home in time to talk to my partner, and have now just had a shower. I'll be interested to see how my legs feel tomorrow, as I've not run that hard in a long time. But I still aim to do a short recovery run tomorrow evening, and then after a rest on Friday I'll be heading out for the standard long run on Saturday.

---

If you would like to check out this activity on strava you can see it here:
https://www.strava.com/activities/10264337950

About the Athlete: Living in the UK, I am an intermittent Runner, but always striving for more consistency. When I'm not training I can be found photographing insects or listening to really loud angry music (which is the best type of music obviously!)

This is an automated post by @strava2hive and is currently in BETA.

If you would like to know more about the @strava2hive service, you can checkout our Frequently Asked Questions.