Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Las Vegas RnR Training - Day 9

As I mentioned it in my article yesterday I did strides at today.  This is the first time I put that much sciences into strides.  Strides are mentioned a lot in the articles I read.  Professional runners and amateurs alike seem to enjoy this type of exercise.  I have done intervals many times where one sprints for a fixed amount of time then recover for a multiple of that amount of time (2x ... 4x ...)  thus the name intervals LOL.  Strides are different in the sense you sprint a fixed distance at a target speed.  In my article yesterday I calculated that my 400m strides are about 3 laps on the gym's track.  Before going to the gym I figured out that at 8:15 min/mile (10k pace) I would cover 400 feet (one gym lap) in about 35s so three laps at 105 seconds or 1 min 45 seconds for a 400m .  I clocked myself each lap (A & B).  Here is the Lap summary:

1A / 1:14.6 / 25s per lap
1B / 1:35.2 / recovery
2A / 1:07.7 / 22.6s per lap
2B / 2:24.1 / recovery
3A / 1:06.5 / 22.3s per lap
3B / 2:07.8 / recovery

Total workout time was 9:36.3.

At the end of the strides I cooled down with 5 min on the stationary bike.  I did not have a specific exercise to do on it, I just did some stuff I remember from the Shift and Lift class, alternate low and high intensity for 30s to 60s.  When I got off the bike my quads were stiff like a rock ...

All in all it was a relatively short but fun workout.  I actually enjoyed it!  It was challenging in unto itself.  I never figured that I would enjoy it but I did.  The purpose of writing this down is more to document for now.  The times I clocked show I can run faster than the 10k pace for a limited number of strides so I can baseline that for my next stride workout.  Also i think that in the more advanced schedules from Hal Higdon's strides are scheduled on Wednesdays with easy / longer runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  So I am not sure how to integrate the strides with the 8 weeks schedule for now.  Will work toward increasing the number of strides.

Tomorrow 6 miler at marathon pace :)

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