Thanks for joining! And if you have questions or topics you’d like cover, feel free to leave as a comment! I try to adapt the movies to what folks think is most helpful
Your videos are priceless, so much wisdom and practical advice that visibly come from experience. I'm in the beginning of my journey, been running for a year, did two 50K self-supported runs so far. Aiming for 100K this year. Haven't been doing intervals, but now I have a guide! BTW those video clips are hilarious! ))
My intervals are typically 4x4 minutes, with 4 minutes recovery between intervals. Intensity is above lactate threshold, aka VO2max pace. I do these on the high school track, road hills, or trail hills. VO2max intervals should be a minimum of 3 minutes to ensure you actually get into the desired intensity zone. 1 minute intervals may not be long enough. Maximum 5-6 minutes, any longer and the intensity is not high enough. Fun stuff!
Interesting @mmg781 - see my comment above. Based on your approach, my 3-min intervals are okay time-wise, but should be at a higher intensity and with a longer recovery between than 60 secs (I'm currently training for a road marathon PB rather than an ultra; back to that after. Aged 57).
@@marathoner_Ali Yes your three minute intervals are good for VO2 max, but doing 10 repetitions might be compromising your intensity as the workout progresses. Maybe 4-6 reps. I wouldn’t be too concerned with trying to nail a specific pace rather than trying to achieve the intensity; heavy breathing, almost full out effort, concerted mental effort to finish the interval but with enough reserve that you could run another hundred meters or so if you had to. From your comment it seemed like you were doing a tempo work out during the same session. Maybe I interpreted that wrong, but make sure you separate your tempo runs into a separate work out. The VO2 max intervals need plenty of recovery afterwards.
Those clips had me crying! That poor guy with the pole... 😂 I've been adding interval training, trying to get some speed back that I lost from months of straight zone 2 training. I think at this point it's a mental block... I'm so used to running slowly, I'm always shocked to do a faster interval and realize I can! I'm going to incorporate the tips here and hope they help me move from the back of the pack up to mid pack. Big goals!! 😂😂
I honestly get lazy with intervals too. Or I guess to my defense, I'm always worried of injury so I leave a good 2 weeks after any race before doing some. Which means it's not that common anymore - but it helped so much, and the benefit was not just speed. All my best race were when I was more diligent about intervals (and/or speed work)
My coach will vary the length and number of intervals. In other words, some are 7x 3min intervals with short (60-90sec) jog recoveries, others are .8miles easy(ish) then finish the mile all out effort, repeat 4-6 times. The ones I am cursing my coach during the workout, but find the most rewarding after, are the 10x1min hill sprints.
Hi Simon - great videos - I stumbled over our channel just some day before. Re intervals I use two Stryd power meters at my shoes. That works perfectly fine is more sustainable and neutral than heart-rate or pace. The reaction / measurement of the power meter is instantaneous. And I 95% of my intervals on the track, which fortunately I have access to.
Interesting - love technology myself. I didn't know about it - read a little and curious how it works as it seems it'll be based on impact. But depending on your form, that may vary so I guess you had to calibrate or something? Anyhow - pretty cool!
First, thank you for that video about interval training. I started running just over 3 months ago, and thanks to advice from more experienced runners, have recently tried intervals. I was a bit apprehensive at first, preferring to just running at a max sustainable pace for longer distance. Then I learned about easy/recovery runs, and around the same time intervals :-). Level 2 training, beyond the basics, whoo hoo :-) Ok, now for my question. I've got a track to do the intervals, and in my mind, I figure the point is to get a wide range of heart rate change, over and over. I also want to do something VERY different from my normal flat pace over distance running (ie 10k ~5min/km). To that end, I run all out for a lap (i think It's around 350meters) my heart rate gets up to 173, then I walk a half lap with heart rate dropping to 130, and repeat. In both speeds, i hit 173 at end of run, and 130 end of walk. The point is that i'm not staying at either BPM for long. In my view, that's the best workout. Better than doing double the distance, ie 2 laps and maybe flatlining at 170, and walking a full lap and sitting at 125 for a while... with half the # of intervals. Obviously variety is good and I'll probably do the 2 or 4 lap variations (with less intervals), but in comparison, would the shorter intervals (just long enough to get a max/min hr at the end) with higher interval #, be slightly better than longer distance (w/less intervals)? Even if so, iI know that it would eventual be trumped by variety, and a wider range of workouts. But apples to apples, what do you think?
I don’t think it’s necessarily super scientific but consensus is to switch it up, and provide your body to different type of stimuli. 1 lap is probably similar to one of the example I had in here. So I think it’s a great workout. Maybe 8-10 repeat. But doing longer intervals is good too. 2 laps in particular is 800m and i think is the most common. 4 laps is 1 mile(ish) so it’s definitely starting to be on the longer range but there’s a place for this. down time shouldnt be that long. maybe a couple of minute (or whatever he equivalent in walking the track). hope that helps!
I've been training with intervals and hill sessions, trying to do all my long runs on trails. Last week, I used the Tunnel Hill trail in Illinois. It's technically a trail.
I did track workouts with my running club for 12 years and we always used time vs distance so that everybody would finish together. Now that I live in a different town I have to do the workouts by myself, but I still do time because the track I run on is not a 400 meter track. My last workout was 6x4 minutes with 2 minutes of jogging I try to run at about 7:30 to 7:45 minute pace for the 4 mutes. I do a 2 mile warm-up and a 1ish mile cooldown.
I’ve been training for my first marathon and haven’t had much of a plan throughout the week besides long runs on Saturdays.. I will start implementing interval training this coming week. Thank you for the advice!
I wanted to know what you thought of these workouts that my running club does for marathon training. There’s one woman who’s been the only person that is training in our advanced group and she’s run multiple marathon majors. I pace her during the workouts but I’m annoyed with it because of how unnecessarily fast we go. I can do the workouts but it’s just a waste of effort and makes it hard for me to do my own training because I don’t wanna do two anaerobic workouts one day apart. For our speed workouts she usually does 200s, 400s and 800s. I ran all throughout high school so I have a pretty good amount of knowledge in sprints and middle distance running. Our head coach likes to focus on the long distance like half marathon and marathon. They have it going good on the aerobic workouts like the easy runs and long runs but the anaerobic workouts are honestly too fast and too many reps. Most of the time he wants her to be going 36-38 on 200s, 80-84 on the 400s and then 2:40-2:50 on the 800s. Her marathon pr is 3:04 I believe so she’s running close to 7 flat pace. There’s some workouts she can’t finish so it’s just not good for her to be going that hard. She shouldn’t be on the ground not able to finish the workout for marathon training. That would be helpful if we were training for the sprint events, 800 and mile because that’s where you NEED that anaerobic condition WAYYY more than in the marathon. I have a friend who coaches at a university here and he ran all throughout high school and all throughout college too. I told him about the workouts and he said that it was too fast. I like to do maintenance workouts like tempo and slower repeats because they’re tiring enough to keep your anaerobic conditioning but not too tiring where you can’t finish it. It’s about training smart and not hard. So let me know what you think about that
I tend to agree. But I'm fine with shorter distance intervals. My main issue is if you can't finish the workout some times, and lay on the ground, I don't think it was a productive workout. It's OK to make that mistake some times, but at some point you should know the right pace. Also sound like a training for shorter distance to me - but I tend to run for ultras anyway, so maybe it's not totally crazy for someone aiming for a fast HM.
Watched this today... 2 hrs after doing an interval session, lol. Currently training towards a significant marathon PB attempt hence doing one interval (e.g., today was 10 sets of 3-min @ 4:40/km [15-sec/km above race pace] and 1-min recovery @ 6:30/km) and one tempo session (e.g., 4km @ 6:00, 3km @ 5:00, 3km @ 4:40), so each session being aprx 60 mins each. However, I wasn't aware of how this may also be beneficial for my longer, slower distance running goals that I will look to after this race - so, really good to know. Now wondering, from seeing your video, if my intervals should be perhaps shorter than 3 mins (15-sec/km above race pace), and perhaps 2 mins but at 25-sec/km above race pace, i.e., my 3-5k pace?
No - I think there's benefit to doing both short and long intervals. And a 3min interval IMO is mid intervals. And your tempo run covers longer type intervals. I enjoy the 1-2 min ones just to switch things up from the normal running I do.
Tracks are way more accesible then tredmills. There's a lot of public tracks that cost nothing ;), it also feels very dangerous to run fast on a treadmill and it's very loud. Mixing up all types of speed work is the most fun for me. So sometimes hills, sometimes track, sometimes tempo.
Maybe it depends where you live for tracks... For treadmills, any gym has some, a fair amount own one, a lot of work place have some (of my 4 previous employers, all had treadmills). Heck even when I'm traveling for work, any hotel has access to treadmill. It usually takes me longer to change than to access a treadmill. But for tracks, I'd need to drive at least 20-30 min, and most tracks are either not public, or are too crowded.
J'ai fait mes recherches et construit mes plans sans coach. Je connais des coachs par contre donc si j'ai des questions on peut en parler. On a egalement une tres bonne amie qui est physiotherapeute - ce qui peut etre tres pratique quand tu as un debut de blessure et as besoin d'exercice pour aider.
