A Striking Interval

Interval Training - 30 minutes
5 repeats of 3 minutes at effort 4 followed by 2 minutes jog recovery at effort 1

Two new experiences for me – interval training and being on strike. The civil service is striking today to protest against the swathing cuts political parties of all colours are falling over themselves to propose, while making no signs of slimming down their delivery agenda. I’m afraid we won’t bring anything to a stand-still, but a whole load of paper will go 'unpushed' today. See how you like that!

Anyway, to business. I used my day off to try out a new training experience – interval training. This is a run where you intersperse fast efforts of running with periods of recovery. It is supposed to improve the maximum rate at which your lungs can extract oxygen from the air and your muscles use it.

I took the bus (tee hee!) down into Camden and jogged into Regent’s Park as a warm up. It was a lovely day. I figured it would be easier to try something like this in a fairly open space where I would have clear, flat running surface. The Broad Walk in Regents Park is ideal for this, but as I approached the end, it did feel a little bit like I was a place taxi-ing to the end of a runway. Allow me to demonstrate:

After 2 mins gentle jog I did my first 3 minute burst of speed. It’s very hard to maintain a very quick pace for even 3 minutes, so I quickly learnt that it was the effort that you are putting in that counts, not just the speed. By the time I had completed the 3 minute sprint and jogged a 2 minute recovery, I was at the other end of the Broad Walk and had to turn around do the same in the opposite direction. Once again, passers by must have thought I was mad, sprinting up and down the park like that.

It was a difficult session and I was relieved when I did the 5th and final repeat. I’m just not very good at speed work – but that’s why I need to do more of it I suppose. Doing this type of training in the park is ideal, but it might be difficult in future because they are closed after dark and the majority of my training has to be done in the evenings. I am going to try and join one of the club track sessions in Maida Vale (yay!) or in Battersea which do much the same thing, but will have the benefits of i) floodlights ii) a running track and iii) coaches.

In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy the rest of my day off by going shopping for yet more running gear – need some Ron Hill jogging trousers because it’s going to get cold at the weekend and I might even invest in another pair of trainers!

Hope none of you were trying to send in your tax return today – man, you guys are sooooo screwed.