Intervals

The frozen over canal on the first Tuesday of the year meant postponing my return to the paddle for another week. Instead I went for another unplanned extended jog around the Richmond ParkRun course. It went fairly well but again it was slow, slow slow at 32:11 with the main loss of time on the final hilly mile, which took just over ten minutes. The loss occurs because I'm putting a fair amount of effort into the upward clines and having to recoup the energy with a short walk to recover at the top of the individual slopes.

Speed, or lack of it, is always the problem. I seem to have plateaued out at the moment with times for the 5k distance hovering around the 27/28 minutes at least a couple of minutes below my previous best. Most of my jogs incorporate some sort of loading, usually in the form of hills, but this isn't working on speed. It doesn't bring about greater leg speed, only strength to sustain the length of time an effort can be maintained. With this in mind I've started to incorporate a bit of faster jogging that I hope will get the legs up to speed. Thursday I took to the old recreation ground at Ditton which sports a perimeter of almost exactly of a half mile. The session this time after warm up, was:-

Lap1) 10k pace. Lap 2) jog/recover   3&4) 1/4ml @5k pace 1/4ml jog.  5&6) 440yd sprint / 440rec

That turned out to be a bit of a workout but was completed okay. So three miles effort in total with the best time for the half mile at 3:41, and the quarter mile turned in at 1:55. I finished off the session with a round of the exercise machines in the outdoor gym which takes up the furthest corner of the field. A day's rest this week and then onto the Saturday ParkRun. That was again disappointing as I'd hoped to get a time back into the 26 minute slot but an oversized field of over 400 runners packed with 'first outing of the new year with good resolutions' meant a crowded pathway that was hard to get around and slowed the pace in my part of the procession. This was my 50th ParkRun and I fetched in a time of 27:30 mainly due to losing 18 seconds through the start, slow first and second miles and about five seconds where the finish line was blocked by sheer weight of numbers. Splits were better though and a near miss to the nine minute limit on the final uphill mile was an encouragement.   1)8:37.  2) 8:56. 3) 9:07. 4) 0:49

I actually felt like getting out again on the following Monday and spun around almost six miles of Richmond park taking in the hilly bit again on the last mile. This time i managed almost Saturday's pace for the first three miles and an eyeballs out effort on each hill with a walk for recovery. That last mile took a total of 9:38 including the walks. 

Meanwhile, back on the water after the previous week's freeze out from paddling, I finally made it back to the club to try out in a kayak. I used my Laance even though it was a bit of a faff getting it on and off the car and tagged onto the slow group, but once again I couldn't keep up even with them after the first ten minutes. I was soon off the pace and dropping back with an ever increasingly painful shoulder until they were out of sight. After a while I turned back and completed only just over two miles. After a very painful first day it's now taken four days to get it back to normal and useable. I'm intending to give it another try this coming Tuesday and if it doesn't improve I guess I'm just going to have to rethink the whole issue.

On Thursday I tried another intervals session on the paths around Bushy park. Way back I'd bought a Gymboss interval timer but haven't been able to use it except for a couple of occasions. The Gymboss allows any variation of up to three elements of intervals to be be programmed into it. In my search for leg speed I've set up a trial programme of six reps of 2x minutes effort with 2x minutes rest. The intervals are short enough for speed and enough rest time to recover adequately. That's short efforts of faster than 5k pace with jog or walk to recover. I went into the first mile as a warm up and started Gymboss for the set. The six reps more or less took me through to the end of the course and at the end it felt as if I'd done something useful.

With my ParkRun times languishing in the 27/28 minute slots for the past couple of months I felt I needed a bit of a boost with a better time in the 26 minute frame. That needed a good start to get around the usual time loss that I experience at Richmond, so I seeded myself well up the throng. This time I got away with a loss of only about five seconds and clear of the bunching runners to give a clearer run at the target mile times. The run ended with a time well within the target at 26:33 and almost a minute quicker than last week.