My First Track Repeats

All the reading I’ve done about running indicates that there are two good ways to get faster: volume, and intensity.  I’m about as high as I can get volume wise and still keep my life balanced, about 20 miles a week has been perfect for me.

But I have not been upping my intensity, with hill repeats, intervals or fartleks.  Since I’d enjoy getting faster, I’ve decided to ramp up my efforts by gradually incorporating speed workouts into my running.

This afternoon, I went out and did my first ever track repeats.

Track repeats are great, because you can do them with just a stop watch, or, even if you have a GPS watch, you don’t have to check it continuously because you have a good visual of how much further you need to run in order to finish your lap.

For my first interval workout, I ran to our local college track, which is open to the community when not being used by their athletic department.  It was 1.25 miles there, and then I ran a mile of track repeats.  Each lap around the track is a quarter mile, and I ran them at the highest intensity I could maintain, then allowed myself a resting recovery (as opposed to a slow jogging or walking recovery) and then repeated.  I did one mile of these, so four different interval laps of just over two minutes each.

My 5k pace is about 9:40 minute miles, and my half marathon pace is around 11 minute miles.  I generally run my short, easy runs at somewhere between 10 and 10:30 minute miles.

For my track workouts, I ran 7:50 – 8:00 minute pace for each quarter mile.  It was fun for the first half, when I felt like I was flying, and then brutally difficult for the second half!

Greg has told me that intervals get you comfortable running at a faster pace, and that after a round of intervals, he generally runs home faster than he ran there because he’s used to a quicker pace.  Yeah.  Right.

It was hard, but it was fun, and I decided to stop at four repeats because I’m new to track workouts and didn’t want to push things too much.  I would rather run 5 or 6 next week than overdo it and get injured or lose motivation!

I even ran the last lap barefoot, which was really fun on the springy track.

I just wonder when the difference kicks in… my next 10k is in a few weeks, can track repeats now actually make me faster in time for that race?

I guess I’ll find out.