4 replies to this topic

[Buakaw]

Hi Guys,

I have been experimenting with a couple of interval sessions and would like some feedback. I'm not sure if I'm actually pushing too hard and negating the purpose of this type of session. The reason I say that is I have read a 10km training guide which states that a V02 Interval should be about 8-8.5 out of 10 in terms of exertion and a speed session would be around 9.5 out of 10. Jack Daniels talks in terms of percentage of max heart rate and his Intervals are 98-100% of HRmax. It could be that I'm misinterpreting this but the 2 are very different? I don't know what my max heart rate is and can only go by the highest heart rate I have recorded with my HRM (193). I know a lot depends on my current ability and my goal time so let’s say I ran 12km in 46mins and my goal is to run it in 44mins. So to run the 12kms in 44mins I need to allow 3:40per km. My understanding is that I need to run my Intervals slightly faster then what I will actually be running at? Anyway, to make a short story longer, should I back off with the Interval sessions or am I doing ok? I did the below session a week ago 4 * 1000m with 90 recovery runs. Cheers

Time----------Max Speed---------Avg HR----------Max HR
0:03:28----------3:17---------------161---------------173
0:03:30----------3:13---------------177---------------183
0:04:02----------3:39---------------182---------------188 Slight Uphill this km
0:03:36----------3:20---------------186---------------191

Edited by Buakaw, 04 February 2010 - 04:10 PM.

[Tony123]

It looks too fast to me. I would do 6 x 1km at 3:40, with 90sec rec. Or 5 x 2km at 7:20 with 2:30 rec. You need to get comfortable at running at 3:40 per km.

[TrackRunner]

Daniels is a legend and his charts are accurate.

But he aslo says that to increase vo2max you have to spend time at vo2max, the fiirst 2 minutes of the interval is spent getting back upto vo2max so a 3;30 interval means you only get 1:30 of vo2max running. I would be doing 5 minute intervals at 5k race pace to start with and do a 5 minute jog in between. If you can do 5 of those then you are getting 15 minutes of vo2max training, not a bad return for your time. The longer the distance you are training for (i.e 12k) the longer the intervals should be.

Intervals are great in that you can play around with them and shorten the recoveries to suit or lengthen the distance etc etc, but Daniels is right in that if an interval session is done right it should feel like the toughest session you do and this is why it should be only done once a week and the total of the intervals should NOT be more than 8-10% of the weekly klm's,

hope this helps

[EnduranceMachine]

You need more hill work 30secs slower for a slightly hilly km?

[Buakaw]

Thanks Guys, appreciate the feedback. I will mix it up a bit and see how I go.

EnduranceMachine, I live in the foot hills and do plenty of hill running. It's steep enough to mean that I had to adjust my pace to suit. I was more interested in keeping my HR the same for each km than smashing a hill and defeating the purpose of the intervals. It's not easy near my place to find flat areas so I struggle a bit with running an even pace.