I know there aren't too many treadmill fans reading this, but in one area you have to concede that treadmills have an enormous advantage: I speak of course of interval training. Even if you are blessed with a nearby running track (and I'm not) that you can freely access, you still have the problem of how to pace yourself. On the treadmill it's a snap - essentially set and forget. All reasonable treadmills have interval training programs as standard, so you can program into them the distance and speed, the number you wish to attempt and away you go. Mine even has a little LED display representing a 400m track with a progress indicator so you can graphically see how far around the track you are. Neat.
So it was that I stepped on to my treadie this morning ready to have a crack at my first really serious intervals session for the year. I'd set myself a target of 10 x 800m at my 10km PB pace (5:00/km) with a 400m jog recovery between each. My recent efforts suggested this should be very achievable, but even so I was a little nervous, as it's still quite a tough session.
I started with a 2km warm-up jog then launched into it. And yes, it wasn't exactly "easy", but I didn't really struggle at any stage either and completed the session (plus a 2km "warm-down" run) feeling totally brilliant but also feeling I could ramp it up some more yet.
And the endorphin hit - what a rush! I was babbling at people for hours afterwards!
Definitely doing more of these!
16km, 1h37m (10 x 800m @ 5:00/km with 400m recovery jogs + 2km warm up and 2km warm down).
YTD: 606.5km
May I Have This Dance?
