Slow down to speed up

Reading a really interesting thread on letsrun this week, basically about lower mileage runners - doing more intervals but at a controlled pace.

The thread is about 13 years old and is quite funny because it has contributions from both Jim Spivey (World 1500m bronze) who visited my school sports day in 1987 and a really close pal of mine who ran a sub 4 mile.

The main takeaway is based around using intervals more to cover volume but controlling the pace by keeping them quite short.  A great example is lots of 250m reps with 150m jog recoveries. Doing 3 sets of 4 of them with a 400m set recovery seems like a nothing session but is nearly 5 miles (7 with warm up, cool down) and the 250m reps add up to 3km which even steady will be at 4:45/mm pace!

Jim is really interesting because he did low mileage, his pace was realaxed when not doing intervals (6:45/mm long runs!!) but he ran hard when he needed to. His easy days were just 20-25 min runs!

Last few weeks I've tried to include strides in 2 or 3 of my easy runs as it's a great way to add some speed I rather than just plodding on tired legs.

Continuing the slow build this week.  Tuesday session I slowed the session down a little (no Garmin) and hit probably 34/35 for the 200m reps and 70/72 for the 400m.  Felt really controlled and added in a 4th set this week so 3.2km of quality at 800m - 1500m pace. The idea was to control pace by adding extra volume, otherwise it's too easy to run too hard and shread my calfs!

Thursday I added in a 3km threshold section on my easy/steady run. Again no Garmin so on feel but 'felt' like low 6s.  Have to admit this pace feels really comfortable but my legs are just feeling hammered.  Still it was nice to feel like I could push a little bit of pace in there.

Friday treadmill session was kept to 18.5 - 20.1 kmph.  Pace felt insanely easy in comparison to last week but the idea is to make this session feel more and more easy to freshen my legs up.  10 x 60 seconds on (75 last one) with 30 seconds recovery is great for building the engine and I'll probably keep this session year round now as it's so convenient and beneficial.  Did 5 x 2 min a while ago and will likely progress there over winter months.

The battered legs are the process now, if I can start running easy and relaxed the day after sessions I will push on but before then I will keep sessions as they are. Wednesday after track is laughably slow at the minute !!  The natural thought is to constantly add reps or run faster or harder but I am going to keep a lid on progress and let feeling fresher be the aim.  Need to stay away from the Garmin as it's making thing less stressful.  I am running strides in the middle of runs as there's no way I can be arsed at the finish.

There really is so much time until I need to be fit for indoors that I can be safe rather than sorry.

That said I have a 1500m on Monday week so still assessing what time I should be running!  It's going to be my ONLY proper race all summer so I am realistic BUT it's impossible not to get carried away with thoughts of sub 4.20 haha

Saturday, missed the boat with running as was late up and out all day but managed to get some calf raises in!

Sunday jogged to fetch car, felt absolutely great running but very tired.

Getting to the stage where I am thinking about using the Garmin again. I'll def need it for threshold sessions to keep HR and pace in check.

Have entered a road 5k and an 800m in the next couple of weeks so 3 races coming up in short succession so finally something proper to look forward to! Saying that I need to get some threshold and speed work in before all those races to try and rinse out a decent performance or three!