Cardioholics Anonymous: Training for Star City-Week 1

Friday, August 24, 2012

Training for Star City-Week 1

Training for Star City

Week 1 of 13

Sun: Progressive Hill Repeats: (5.37 miles) This is a .53-.55 mile loop around my neighborhood. I start out at a 12 minute mile and slowly increase my pace each lap by 30 seconds per mile for 10 laps, ending at a 7:30 pace. This is a fairly easy workout starting out at an easy warm up effort and slowly increasing to moderate efforts. I nailed all my target paces today, and will be looking to start and finish at faster paces of :30/mile beginning with week 5, then again at week 9. The heart rate spike for each lap occurs during the steep hill climb of approx 120' over a .15 mile stretch from the bottom to the top of Timberline Dr., ensuring that even the easiest laps have a challenging segment requiring a high intensity push.

Mon: Tempo: (4 miles) PR time for this route is 28:15 set on 3-31-11. I went out with the intention of beating it, but came up a few seconds short with a 28:34. I have one more chance next Monday and then I progress my Tempo run to 6 miles. On a more positive note, my 4 mile tempo run during week 1 of training for the Blue Ridge Half back in February was a 29:24, too soon to say, but that could be the start of a trend. HERE is Garmin data comparing Today-vs-1st week of training for BRH 2012-vs-course PR.

Tues: Recovery: (4miles) Just kickin' it around in my Vibrams as the middle part of a 6-4-6 brick. Focus was on form (fore foot striking) and comfort. Pace stayed consistent in the 12's, but there was no need to push it on a recovery day. Notice how low my heart rate stayed.

Wed: Intervals: (4 miles) Target paces were 6's for the sprint segments and 8's for the recoveries. I exceeded the target on the 4th segment and missed it on the 6th and 7th by just a hair. Had I slowed down a little for my 1st downhill sprint, then I probably would have hit all the targets. Interval day is about running economy as much as it is about short speed bursts.