Weer or no weer, run thou shalt!

Miserable day yesterday with rain and sleet coming down hard. But with 5 weeks out to the competition and a canceled 45 minute run yesterday there simply is no excuse for not going out (injury and illness permitting of course). The holy schedule said "thou shalt run an interval run 6 x 5 minutes with 3 minutes rest in between". And if the holy schedule dictates, I shall follow. Did 10 KM in total with the warming up (and with the 1.5 KM that the GPS did not track at the beginning of the run??).

Warmed up for 15 minutes and then started with the speedwork, which still is not my favorite day of the week I must admit. But I'm enjoying it more now that I understand it a bit better. Having read more on training effectively (also from the piece of my last post "Hardlopen en herstellen") I began to realize that during the intervals I've probably pushed too hard too soon. The optimal results (=  to be able to run longer at a faster speed) for distance runners are obtained if you run close to, but just below the anaerobic limit. For me that limit is around 164 BPM. By going over that limit the training becomes heavier but without being more effective. Another fact for a more optimal interval is that in the rest part of the interval, one should dribble and not walk (which I did because I started too quick, ran over my anaerobic limit and thus was so exhausted). Reason being that the lactic acids that are built up in the tempo part of the interval are better used and discarded in an "active rest" at around 120 BPM than at a lower heart rate. With walking your heartbeat will fall below that, meaning you also need more energy to get the heart rate up again to run the speed section.

Anyway, a bit of a technical explanation but interesting to understand more of the reasoning behind the interval training. Two 70 minute runs left on the holy schedule for this week. Doegie!