Interval running - advice from those who have experience

LeonnieH

I tried some interval running today on the treadmill, first time. Usually I run around 5k at the same sort of pace or might go further by slowing down my pace. I'm a slow runner, a 5k run will be around 7.5km/h. A longer run I drop down to 7km/h and can go a bit further. I've decided to start trying interval training because I've heard it's good for improving speed and fitness.

Today I did 3 mins run at 7km/h, then 1 min at 9.5km/h, repeat 5 times. My heart rate went to max 175bpm, average 158bpm. I know my heart rate can go higher as I've been up to 185bpm before, that's the point where I have to slow down and can't maintain it at that rate for very long. Although the workout felt good I feel I could push myself harder. After the interval training session I continued to run at 7km/h for a further 20 mins as I felt I hadn't had a good enough workout.

I need some advice about how to change it up, should I shorten the duration of my recovery run (the 3 mins at 7km/h), should I quicken the pace of my recovery run, should I increase the duration of my fast run (the 1 min at 9.5km/h), or should I increase the pace of my fast run? I'm not quite sure what part of the interval training to change and how much to change it by.

n_unocero

I personally do faster sprints for shorter time and slower recovery for shorter time. my treadmill intervals usually look like this:

6.5 mph run for 30 seconds
9.5-12 mph sprint for 30 seconds
3.5 mph walk for 1 min
repeat.

so 2 mins per cycle, ususally do 5-7 cycles for a total of 10-15 mins. HIIT shouldn't be a long thing.

TAsunder

Here is the routine we did in my treadmill class Wednesday. It looks only slightly different but the incline and the 1 minute of in-between speed definitely would add more challenge.

Start at your set point (in your case 7kmh or ~4.4mph) at 1 incline
After 1 minute increase your speed about 0.6 mph above set point for 30 seconds
After 30 seconds increase an additional 0.2mph for 30 seconds
After 30 seconds increase again to max (usually 1.0 above initial point - 9.5kmh in your case) for 1 minute
Back to initial pace

Increase to 2 incline and repeat whole sequence

Increase to 3 incline and repeat

Increase to 4 incline and repeat

Increase to 5 incline and repeat

LeonnieH

Thanks for the replies In addition I also found this whilst searching the internet, I'll link it here incase it's of interest to anyone who reads this thread later: http://arunshanbhag.com/2009/06/13/interval-training/

Azdak

You can do all kinds of combinations. What you are doing is fine for starters. If you could run for 20 min afterwards, then just try doing some more intervals.

If you are just starting out, you will get better results from what I call "tempo" intervals, rather than sprinting.

In this case, tempo means a pace where you feel you are kind of "on the edge" of what you could sustain for several minutes--it's work, but not all-out work.

The 1:3 work: rest ratio is just fine. Try and do 6-8 repeats of that. Then increase to 2:3, 1:1, 2:1, etc. Eventually you will be able to sustain the higher pace for 4-8 min with a 2-3 min recovery.

Do that for awhile and then you can move up to adding, harder, shorter interval workouts along with the tempo runs.

LeonnieH

You can do all kinds of combinations. What you are doing is fine for starters. If you could run for 20 min afterwards, then just try doing some more intervals.

If you are just starting out, you will get better results from what I call "tempo" intervals, rather than sprinting.

In this case, tempo means a pace where you feel you are kind of "on the edge" of what you could sustain for several minutes--it's work, but not all-out work.

The 1:3 work: rest ratio is just fine. Try and do 6-8 repeats of that. Then increase to 2:3, 1:1, 2:1, etc. Eventually you will be able to sustain the higher pace for 4-8 min with a 2-3 min recovery.

Do that for awhile and then you can move up to adding, harder, shorter interval workouts along with the tempo runs.

Thanks for this information, I like the sound of tempo runs so going to take this on board and plan a 6-8 repeat this week, if that goes well then onto the 2:3 ratio.

ps, the golden in your profile pic looks very sweet, I have a golden too

darrensurrey

Yes, to make it harder, increase the speed and/or the resistance, while decreasing the resting time. Consider decreasing the sprint time by increasing the difficulty such that you can only sustain a 20 second sprint. Depends whether you're just doing interval training or HIIT. For effectiveness, consider HIIT. 20 second at max speed, 20 second jog. Don't know if you can do that on a machine; in a field you can "instantly" change speed.

TrailRunner61

You can do all kinds of combinations. What you are doing is fine for starters. If you could run for 20 min afterwards, then just try doing some more intervals.

If you are just starting out, you will get better results from what I call "tempo" intervals, rather than sprinting.

In this case, tempo means a pace where you feel you are kind of "on the edge" of what you could sustain for several minutes--it's work, but not all-out work.

The 1:3 work: rest ratio is just fine. Try and do 6-8 repeats of that. Then increase to 2:3, 1:1, 2:1, etc. Eventually you will be able to sustain the higher pace for 4-8 min with a 2-3 min recovery.

Do that for awhile and then you can move up to adding, harder, shorter interval workouts along with the tempo runs.

This is what I've been doing for a few weeks and I'm already up .6mph. I also walk 30 minutes after my run and walk outside on my 'rest' days to build ankle/calf strength plus lifting 3x week.
Good luck!

Erica262

I personally do faster sprints for shorter time and slower recovery for shorter time. my treadmill intervals usually look like this:

6.5 mph run for 30 seconds
9.5-12 mph sprint for 30 seconds
3.5 mph walk for 1 min
repeat.

so 2 mins per cycle, ususally do 5-7 cycles for a total of 10-15 mins. HIIT shouldn't be a long thing.

I do something very similar to this, only I measure distance instead of time. I'll do something like a 1 mile warm up on the indoor track at my easy walk/run pace. Then I'll go to the treadmill and do 5x800 meter repeats at my 5k pace with 400 meter rests of my easy pace in between. Then another .5-1 mile cool down on the track. Right now my 5k pace is a 10-minute mile, but I'm hoping to be faster in the next couple months. My easy pace is a 12-minute mile.

I always use Runner's World SmartCoach... Even if I'm not currently training for an actual race. I'll just make up a 10-week training plan just to have a routine to stick with. Hal Higdon is good too, but I usually use that when I am training for an actual race.

LeonnieH

Right now I think interval training rather than HIIT would suit me better. As mentioned earlier I run quite slowly and would like to work on getting my pace quicker, not necessarily sprinting but going from a 5k run at 7.5km/h to something like 9.5km/h for that distance. I do a park run most Saturdays, it's a timed 5k run, and currently getting around in about 35 minutes, I'd like to get that gradually down to around 30 mins. I was thinking of doing a combination of interval training (to speed up my pace) and slow but longer runs to improve my endurance - I currently run about 5k each time I run but maybe should look at introducing one longer run of around 7-10k per week. I could add two interval/tempo runs to the week plus the timed 5k park run.

LeonnieH

You can do all kinds of combinations. What you are doing is fine for starters. If you could run for 20 min afterwards, then just try doing some more intervals.

If you are just starting out, you will get better results from what I call "tempo" intervals, rather than sprinting.

In this case, tempo means a pace where you feel you are kind of "on the edge" of what you could sustain for several minutes--it's work, but not all-out work.

The 1:3 work: rest ratio is just fine. Try and do 6-8 repeats of that. Then increase to 2:3, 1:1, 2:1, etc. Eventually you will be able to sustain the higher pace for 4-8 min with a 2-3 min recovery.

Do that for awhile and then you can move up to adding, harder, shorter interval workouts along with the tempo runs.

This is what I've been doing for a few weeks and I'm already up .6mph. I also walk 30 minutes after my run and walk outside on my 'rest' days to build ankle/calf strength plus lifting 3x week.
Good luck!

That's great to hear it's working for you, hopefully I will see similar results then. I do strength training 2-3 times a week too and daily walks/hikes with my dog.

LeonnieH

I personally do faster sprints for shorter time and slower recovery for shorter time. my treadmill intervals usually look like this:

6.5 mph run for 30 seconds
9.5-12 mph sprint for 30 seconds
3.5 mph walk for 1 min
repeat.

so 2 mins per cycle, ususally do 5-7 cycles for a total of 10-15 mins. HIIT shouldn't be a long thing.

I do something very similar to this, only I measure distance instead of time. I'll do something like a 1 mile warm up on the indoor track at my easy walk/run pace. Then I'll go to the treadmill and do 5x800 meter repeats at my 5k pace with 400 meter rests of my easy pace in between. Then another .5-1 mile cool down on the track. Right now my 5k pace is a 10-minute mile, but I'm hoping to be faster in the next couple months. My easy pace is a 12-minute mile.

I always use Runner's World SmartCoach... Even if I'm not currently training for an actual race. I'll just make up a 10-week training plan just to have a routine to stick with. Hal Higdon is good too, but I usually use that when I am training for an actual race.

I didn't know about the Runner's World SmartCoach, going to have a better look at that, sounds interesting and very helpful, thanks