A series of short sharp shocks


My legs felt exceptionally sore today, coming off the back of one hard run and quite a few easy ones. Today, however, I had a hard session to do: 30 second intervals at somewhere between 1500m and 3k pace, broken up with a minute of jogging each time. The training plan calls for 10-20; I miscounted, thought I’d done 10 and did one extra, ans got home to find I’d actually run 12, which was a sort of bonus.

It was harder than going off for a gentle jog, but it wasn’t horrible. In under thirty minutes I got 5k into my legs, and instead of either having the mind-numbing boredom of a very slow run, or the exhaustion of going hard all the time, these short bursts left me at the end feeling I’d done something, without being too worn out.

That seems to be very much the approach of Build Your Running Body; lots of incredibly slow runs to build up stamina, and a few tougher (but not too tough) sessions in between. Then again, this is the 5k plan I’m on, rather than a more brutal marathon schedule.

There’s a helpful passage I hadn’t read before, explaining why most of the training sessions are specified by time, rather than distance: for an elite runner, 10k might be a relaxed short run, whereas for somebody slower it’s a long, exhausting slog. Basing workouts on time gives more people a chance to cope with the same structure. (There also seems to be more literature supporting the benefit of running for at least 10 minutes, or at least 30 minutes, or at least an hour and a half – I think it may all be about getting out there and away from distraction.)

Obviously, a short thirty minute set is easier to fit into the schedule than an hour: I get more time to get home, drink milk and sleep. And I need some sleep; La Serpiente’s school is shut for a few days because of hand foot and mouth disease, and if that wasn’t enough she had a weird nightmare last night – I came in to find her sat bolt upright on the floor, still asleep, muttering “I have to have two”. Having your child star in their own crappy Hollywood horror flick is not so relaxing. I wonder how tonight will go…


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