Also, it was on the verge of 50F and sunny out (!) when I got home from work, so that doesn’t hurt either. I even busted out shorts for my run. Craziness.
My training schedule is already all kinds of mixed up, but I’m not letting it bother me.
Since I did a tempo run last week, I didn’t want to be boring by doing another tempo run this week. I did some intervals instead. Speed work according to my schedule would have been 8 x 400 at a 5k pace. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m borrowing speed work and hills from Hal Higdon’s Advanced Half marathon plan. The advanced plan has 800 and 1600 repeats, not just the 400 repeats that the intermediate plan has.
Based on the handy dandy McMillan running calculator, for a half marathon time of 2:16-2:20, my 10k pace would be 9:49-10:07, and my 5k pace would be 9:28-9:45.
My four 800s were at the following paces: 9:42, 9:47, 9:40, 9:37. Awesome! I had in my mind that I’d be happy with a 10:00 pace for these intervals, right in the middle of my 10k pace range, but I surprised myself and exceeded that.
I chose to rest for .25 miles/400m in between intervals. This consisted of jogging for the first .05, slowing even more to a walk for .15, then jogging for the last .05 of the rest interval before starting my next 10k pace interval.
I’m also really happy with how quickly my heart rate recovered in between intervals (and the face that I didn’t break a HR of 180 until late in the 3rd interval). This is definitely an improvement. Yay for heart rate progress!
Also, a follow up from yesterday: The Dannon vanilla Greek yogurt.
I had it for a morning snack/part of lunch today with fresh raspberries. And it was fantastic! I gotta agree with Becky C, Dannon’s vanilla does top the others in my book… And it has real sugar, not aspartame (blech). So – two thumbs up for Dannon’s vanilla Greek yogurt!
PS,
Be sure to check out Michelle's Nathan Sports Giveaway on her blog, Michelle Goes Running.
yay thanks for posting my giveaway
ReplyDeleteI heart greek yogurt. yum yum. I eat it everyday usually.
Yay for running 800's faster than 10min pace! This warm weather os great. I hope it stays like this (wishful thinking)
ReplyDeleteJust curious...what is your long run sequence? I am looking at the Hal plan as well and am struggling with how to plan my long runs! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you liked the vanilla!
ReplyDeleteI'm starting to train for another half marathon as well (I've only got 8 weeks to train) and trying some stuff from Hal's Intermediate plan. I like the idea of the 800 and 1600 repeats though, I'm feeling tempted to try some of that. I don't necessarily want to get faster, I just want to feel really prepared.
What are you hoping to achieve this time around with the training?
kathleen- Yeah! I think it's going to be really disappointing if it snows again after this. I'd expect it in upstate NY, but not here in NJ!
ReplyDeleteKelly- if you click on the Current Training tab up top you can see my original training plan with long runs on Sundays, the plan has me going up to 12 before the half. I've had to switch around some runs due to weather and schedule conflicts, but I've gotten in most of the runs I'm supposed to. I've done my long runs a little longer than listed in the plan.
Becky C- Good luck with your training! I read somewhere that 400 repeats may not be as helpful for halfs as longer repeats, so I thought I would borrow a little from the Advanced plan. I guess my main goal this time around would be to beat my previous best time of 2:21:10 (first half last spring on a flat course). Perhaps I shouldn't have picked a course with some hills, but I will consider it that much more of an accomplishment if I can break last year's time!