With only 7 weeks or so to go until the Winnipeg Police Service half marathon I decided it was time to get serious about getting my speed up. I want to finally break my 2002 PR for a half (1:46:11) and this is the race to do it. I got to 1:47:14 in the fall and I worked to maintain as best I could over the winter but I know I have lost some speed. So now is the time to pick up the pace and start pushing harder.
Keeping that in mind I decided to try some higher intensity interval runs tonight. I started out with a slow walk for 2 minutes at 5% incline and then did 8 mph @ 1% incline for another 2 minutes. I walked for a minute to make sure I had caught my breath and then started into the higher speed intervals from there. I did my first high speed minute at 9 mph, then did a minute walk and then hit 10 mph for a minute and another minute walking. Kept up the minute at 10 and a minute walking until I hit 2 miles.
I then did a minute at 7 mph and 3% incline and then 4 minutes at 7.5 mph. Then it was time to hit the intervals again alternating 1 minute at 10 and a minute walking until I got to the 11 minute mark on this leg of the run. Backed off at this point to 7.5 mph for 5 minutes and then pushed out the remaining partial minute at 10 mph to finish strong
Grand total in the end was 4 miles in 34:58. It was definitely a harder push doing the much higher speeds which felt good. But I did my last 4 mile run 5 minutes faster which makes me wonder if I pushed hard enough tonight. I will have to do some experimenting to get a good balance here – definitely want to keep pushing the speed and the cardiovascular strength so intervals will continue but I may have to push the warm up a little harder and do a little less time on recovery. Either way – it was a good start.
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