Interval Training

Seems to work for me these days.

I’ve been reading over the years how interval training was the best weight loss tool out there. Long, slow, and steady workouts were not the thing.  Humans weren’t made to run long distances, we were made to run for our life get away from the predator as fast as you can! Short FAST spurts. I personally would have gotten eaten as I always work best at slow and steady endurance and not so good at speed. When I did my C25K earlier this year or even the Learn to Run program I started last year, I was slow as molasses. My friend (and also boss) did the L2R program with me and we would meet downtown at 5:30 in the morning and go for a practice run. We didn’t run any faster than 4.2- 4.5mph. Most of you could WALK faster than that. But for both of our 5’2” frames, 185lb bodies, 4.5 mph worked.

Just recently I decided to give the interval training a try again. I’ve been using the C25K Week One program because I have it on my iTouch and it does the timing for me and I just have to change the speed. I should be doing 1 min fast, 1 minute recovery, but the first week is 90 seconds of walking in between and it is so much easier to just follow the already programed prompts than to be watching the clock myself. This way I just have to focus on one foot in front of the other and not how many seconds are left.

So this morning I was on my last minute of running and I decided to hit 5.5 mph on the treadmill. Now I realize that running on  the TM is so much different than running outside but inside is my winter choice. So TM it is… anyway…. 5.5mph is freakin fast for me. However this morning I experienced a very weird feeling.

I felt like I was floating, like it wasn’t all that hard, like I was in a rhythm.  it actually felt “peaceful”. Very strange for me… but it was oh so cool…

Now I don’t think that feeling would have lasted longer than that minute but I know from making it entirely through a C25K program and able to run a full 30 minutes at 4.5 mph, that with work and practice I CAN run 30 minutes at 5.0 or 5.5, or 6 .0 or 7.0 mph (you get the drift). I probably could work myself up in speeds.

However I don’t like running all that much and would rather do strength training.

So I’ve decided that for 2011 I am going to focus on interval training, no longer than 30 minutes 3x a week and then in February when I sign up for the 2011 Kidney March, I’ll be back to the LONG (several hours at a time) walks. But I MUST keep incorporating the Interval training and strength training in there.

That was my problem this year. Once I signed up for the Kidney March all I did was walk. And ate like I was 30….

I hope everyone is having a fantastic week!

ttyl

Sandra