So there have been a few posts on the TrD Facebook page about Jeff Galloways intervals and it got me thinking. I know Jeff personally likes smaller intervals (he did :30/:15 to BQ!) and sings their high praises but I always felt like too small of an interval would be starting and stopping too much.
Well I decided to give it a try this morning and overall it went pretty well! I started with :30 sec running /:30 sec walking and then the last 1km (my iPod was set to 5K) I switched to :30 sec running/ :15 sec walking.
Well it sure was a workout! I was pretty much sprinting for 30 seconds and then using the walk to recover. When It was great speed work and a great workout for me-especially since I woke up kind of sluggish.
However after I was done, I was so beat! I rolled and stretched and just sat for a bit. I usually eat right after I run but I had no appetite (and I still don't know over 60 minutes later).
My finishing time was around 34:17 which about a minute off my PR I set a few weeks ago. However I think some of that was due to :30/:30. I feel like I could work up to a :30/:15 I could beat that PR easily but it would be a workout for sure!
I analyzed my splits when I got home and was shocked to see I had negative splits (10:58 down to 10:13) the whole way even though I felt like I was slowing down towards the end.
I can definitely see myself incorporating this into my speed work I'm trying to start on the regular now. It really got me to push myself and I can see it helping my speed greatly overtime. Not to mention the energy it gave me! Wow I feel good!
Now would I run a race like this? I'm not so sure yet. I think it would be hard to keep the pace with lots of people around such as at a rundisney race. However I could maybe see myself using it in a 5k in the future especially if I wanted to get some speed work in.
Have you ever tried a small interval? What did you think?
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