Running Mania

Over 50cm of snow fell on my little island over night & we all got to stop, take a breath & enjoy winter for a day!

So ... I had a chance to get this run done earlier than planned. The gift of a sleep-in gave me some extra energy so I added a 3rd interval for a total of 9 miles w/ wu & cd. While I've done 2 mile intervals before, I've never played w/ the pace in this way. I really liked it & felt strong enough in the 3rd to push a bit extra.

Afterwards, I put on my snow gear & walked downtown w/ my husband - lots of snow covered roads still & most of the city is closed (even Starbucks where I was hoping to get a chai latte). If only every winter day could be as quiet, pretty & peaceful .

I ended up doing the virtual workout today also. I had a few hours this afternoon to squeeze it in.
I did warm up/cool down, 2 miles (one slower, one faster), then 3 miles (slower, faster, slower). Slower not really being slow!

The time flew by!!

great job guys! i did my tempo from my training plan on monday, so i'll likely give this one a pass this week.

I haven't tried to do these workouts. But yall have inspired me to tweak the tm speeds up a little.

Is this a "never ending virtual workout thread" (VW NET) ?

Spirit wrote:I haven't tried to do these workouts. But yall have inspired me to tweak the tm speeds up a little.

Is this a "never ending virtual workout thread" (VW NET) ?

Good job!
As long as people want to keep posting and doing the workouts, then I guess it is.

Habs4ever wrote:

Spirit wrote:I haven't tried to do these workouts. But yall have inspired me to tweak the tm speeds up a little.

Is this a "never ending virtual workout thread" (VW NET) ?

Good job!
As long as people want to keep posting and doing the workouts, then I guess it is.

It's helpful to get out of a rut of always setting the TM to a certain speed and not varying that from run to run.

Habs4ever wrote:

Spirit wrote:I haven't tried to do these workouts. But yall have inspired me to tweak the tm speeds up a little.

Is this a "never ending virtual workout thread" (VW NET) ?

Good job!
As long as people want to keep posting and doing the workouts, then I guess it is.

I hope this keeps going. It's a great motivator to get in speedwork I probably wouldn't do by myself.

MikeM wrote:

Habs4ever wrote:

Spirit wrote:I haven't tried to do these workouts. But yall have inspired me to tweak the tm speeds up a little.

Is this a "never ending virtual workout thread" (VW NET) ?

Good job!
As long as people want to keep posting and doing the workouts, then I guess it is.

I hope this keeps going. It's a great motivator to get in speedwork I probably wouldn't do by myself.

I agree Mike. I know they are helping me for sure. i would have never attempted what I did yesterday if I was doing it on my own.

Just got it done. I did 3km intervals instead of 2mi since the treadmills at work are in metric.

1km w/u @ 6:00

2 x 3km (1.5 @ 4:57 (12.1km/h), 1.5 @ 4:41(12.8km/h))
.5km recovery @ 6:00 in between

1km c/d @ 6:00

In retrospect, I might have been able to go a little bit faster. I was working fairly hard at the end of the second interval but was still running relaxed. I probably could have managed at 4:50 and 4:30.

Nicely done mike!

I'm actually not going to do this one this week since it doesn't fit into my half-marathon taper plan. But I will work in a little bit of mixing up the paces in a similar way in my long run tomorrow.

This week's workout:

warm up of choice

6 x (4 min @ 5k pace + 1 min recovery)

cool down of choice

With my long run being done Wednesdays, I will need to do these workouts on Mondays or Fridays.

Done! I debated whether I should be doing this or hills at this point in my training, but I decided to give this a go.

10min/1m warmup @6mph
6X4 min @ 8mph (no idea if this is my 5K pace, but sounded good!)
1 min recover @5.5mph
2K@ 6.2mph

Total 10K in 54:30.

Good job Lisa!

I just finished as well:

6 min w/u
6 x 4min @ 4:28, 1 min recovery @ approx 6:00-6:10

I finished with a bit of a sprint for the last 45 seconds @ 4:15.

Total was 7.2km in 35 minutes.

I did the switchblade on tues and it went well. I did a mile warmup and 2x2 miles because that's all I had time for, and because I shortened it from Fleshman's version (3x2miles) I tried to be a bit more aggressive with the pace, targeting 15k pace (4:30-4:35, or 7:20 miles) as the mid point instead of half marathon pace (7:30ish miles). That was maybe a bit too aggressive, but it was close- half marathon pace wouldn't have been quite hard enough. I ended up doing 7:30, 7:08, then I had to slow to 7:40 and 7:18 (though I picked it up to 7:03 by the end of the last mile).

Today I did her workout for this week, the Kenyan progression run. It's 5 miles, starting at 2 min or so per mile slower than 10k pace. Each mile is faster by about 30 seconds. It feels really easy at first, but by the end it's really hard! I started at 8:49 for mile 1, then 8:18 for mile 2, 7:53 and 7:47 half and half for mile 3, then 7:18 for mile 4, then 6:53 and 6:47 half and half for mile 5. I'd highly recommend this one.


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QuickChick wrote:I did the switchblade on tues and it went well. I did a mile warmup and 2x2 miles because that's all I had time for, and because I shortened it from Fleshman's version (3x2miles) I tried to be a bit more aggressive with the pace, targeting 15k pace (4:30-4:35, or 7:20 miles) as the mid point instead of half marathon pace (7:30ish miles). That was maybe a bit too aggressive, but it was close- half marathon pace wouldn't have been quite hard enough. I ended up doing 7:30, 7:08, then I had to slow to 7:40 and 7:18 (though I picked it up to 7:03 by the end of the last mile).

Today I did her workout for this week, the Kenyan progression run. It's 5 miles, starting at 2 min or so per mile slower than 10k pace. Each mile is faster by about 30 seconds. It feels really easy at first, but by the end it's really hard! I started at 8:49 for mile 1, then 8:18 for mile 2, 7:53 and 7:47 half and half for mile 3, then 7:18 for mile 4, then 6:53 and 6:47 half and half for mile 5. I'd highly recommend this one.


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Ohhh, I like!

Can I vote for this one to be next week's virtual workout? I'd just have to figure out my TM settings for each mile

Yeah I took my 10k pb pace (6:51) and used that as the starting point- 2 min slower than that at the beginning, and about that pace at the end. I am not at that level of fitness now to run that 10k pace in a race (maybe by spring?), so I'd just say pick a challenging enough pace as your starting point. If I had picked, say, 7:15 pace, which I could reasonably say I'd do 10k in now, it would've been too easy. So if you don't have a 10k pace that is really reflective of the very best you can do, maybe look at your other results and extrapolate.


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QuickChick wrote:Yeah I took my 10k pb pace (6:51) and used that as the starting point- 2 min slower than that at the beginning, and about that pace at the end. I am not at that level of fitness now to run that 10k pace in a race (maybe by spring?), so I'd just say pick a challenging enough pace as your starting point. If I had picked, say, 7:15 pace, which I could reasonably say I'd do 10k in now, it would've been too easy. So if you don't have a 10k pace that is really reflective of the very best you can do, maybe look at your other results and extrapolate.


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This looks like exactly what my legs are asking for today! I want to do a quality run but I'm a bit tired and don't feel 24 minutes @ 5k pace would work for me ... thanks for posting this, QC. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Got it done - I really enjoyed it! The progression in pace was a perfect way to ease my tired (and one-year-older today, funny enough) body into some quality work. It was exactly what I needed. I ended up running it out to 10k w/ the last 1.2 @ MP.

And I just poured myself a big glass of wine. This is a Friday I was happy to see!!!

IronColl wrote:This week's workout:

warm up of choice

6 x (4 min @ 5k pace + 1 min recovery)

cool down of choice

Done yesterday.
Thanks for the workout, I enjoyed it.

QuickChick wrote:Today I did her workout for this week, the Kenyan progression run. It's 5 miles, starting at 2 min or so per mile slower than 10k pace. Each mile is faster by about 30 seconds. It feels really easy at first, but by the end it's really hard! I started at 8:49 for mile 1, then 8:18 for mile 2, 7:53 and 7:47 half and half for mile 3, then 7:18 for mile 4, then 6:53 and 6:47 half and half for mile 5. I'd highly recommend this one.

OK, let's do this one for this week. (Lisa P voted for this one). If you need to shorten it, adjust your starting pace accordingly so your last mile is 30s faster than 10k pace.

That does look like a good workout QC posted. I won't do it this week but in a couple of weeks or so.

RobW wrote:That does look like a good workout QC posted. I won't do it this week but in a couple of weeks or so.

Me too!

I came across this article today:

http://www.runnersworld.com/workouts/ho ... -intervals

Since we've talked before about when walking or jogging is appropriate for recovery between intervals, I thought it might be of interest to some people.

I did QC's progressive tempo today!

The last mile or 2 of it really is tough!

1 mile 6.0mph
1 miles 6.4mph
1 mile 6.8mph
1 mile 7.2mph
1 mile 7.6mph
1 mile 8.0 mph - but bumped it up to 8.2 toward the end to get it over with!
jogging, walking cool down.