Make it count

It's not always easy to get out the door.

Especially if you know you're in for a load of slush, like last Saturday

Because I take Friday as my day off training, Thursdays are the last push of each 6-day weekly cycle. Thursday is also the only day I don't really get a lunch break at work (I'm out of the office in the afternoon doing the company's banking), and since I do strength training in the mornings Mon-Thurs that only leaves after work - and a bunch of errands - for me to get out for a run.

It's dark out by then - I never seem to get out before 8pm, and it's generally closer to 9pm or beyond - and these days it's usually cold and miserable out. I'm tired; carrying 6 days of workouts in my legs, and almost a full work week in my head. It gets tempting just to stuff it all and sit on the couch instead of going for a run.

Since I just run around my neighbourhood, the scenery isn't exactly inspiring, either.

A couple of weeks ago I was very close to just skiving off, as it felt almost worthless to just go for another aimless meander around the 'hood. In order to get my butt out there, I had to take a different tactic.

I had to make it count.

So, I looked at a map of the area online - I find this one really handy - and picked a block that would let me get in about a mile warm-up before I reached it. When I got to a particular corner, it was GO TIME.

The black dot shows where the hammer came down
(Ok, perhaps novelty foam mallet is more accurate)

Having measured out the length of the block, I ran down the long side, across the short end, then partway back up the other long side at an effort that felt difficult but sustainable. I slowed when I reached the bank of mailboxes that serves this part of the neighbourhood, and trotted at an easy pace back to the black dot. 

Then I took off again, pushing my stride a little longer, trying to be smooth but fast as I gulped down oxygen. Push over the little hill in the middle of the long side of the block - keep on the gas as I come down the other side - careful at the corners and don't let up til I'm past the mailboxes. Slow to an easy jog and head up to the start point.

Again. Each push gets a little more difficult as my heart rate rises, without quite enough recovery time between the intervals for it to come back down again.

Five repeats, then an easy kilometer jog to finish it off.

My pace increases weren't sustained or significant enough to show in the stats afterward, but you can see the lumps that show my increased heart rate and cadence.

When I was done, I felt GREAT - nothing like a tough workout to get the blood circulating and energize yourself! The paces were nothing special; definitely faster than my usual relaxed ambling, but at the end of my training week (and not having done a track workout in maybe 3 years or more) I didn't have enough oomph to set anything on fire with my speed. There was undoubtedly some training benefit to it: while my intervals only ended up being about 2mins each, that made a total of 10mins total that I spent training my body and mind to know they could move (relatively) fast even when tired.

The biggest benefit to it, though, was simply getting out for a run at all. It's easy to bag off another ho-hum, nothing special run - it's more difficult to say you're going to sit on the couch instead of doing an interval/track workout, or hill repeats, or whatever focused training you can come up with that you think you can handle. That's the stuff that improves your running economy, lactate threshold, VO2max - all the things that make you faster and more resilient, and it doesn't take much to produce an effect. So, skipping a workout like that? Not so easy to justify.

Even if it's not actually on a track.
(It's probably worth noting that this run on a proper - though not 400m - track did NOT include any intervals)

I'm not fussed at all that my chosen block was somewhere around 640m total, with my speedier intervals being around 360m with about a 280m. While quite different from a standard 400m oval track, the training stimulus of pushing at a higher effort is exactly the same, and the lack of a reference point for what my pace/time "should" be for that distance gave me the freedom to just see what my body was capable of that evening. Had I been on a quarter-mile oval, I might have become discouraged at not being able to hit X time for a lap; all you really need for a track-style workout is a distance that is repeatable, not necessarily standard. Start here, stop there. Repeat. This makes it accessible to anyone - if you don't have a block to run around, do an out-and-back where you drop a stone, or draw a line in the snow, or really do anything to mark it off. Start at one marker and push hard til you reach the other, then turn around and jog easy back to the beginning. Then do it again.

If you don't even feel up to that, pick a hill. Try to run steady up it, then jog easy back down. Repeat that as many times as you like.

If you're too shagged out to do something structured, set off with the intent of throwing in a bit of a push when start and stop points appear organically on your run. Warm up for 10-20mins, then pick a lamppost and run hard to the next one before returning to an easy job. Run hard along the length of someone's fence, or a row of townhouses, or between street signs. Try running one block hard, then one block easy. Give yourself as much recovery between intervals as you want, and try to keep your stride smooth when you're pushing.

Anything can be an interval, even if you're just counting off cracks in the sidewalk.

This doesn't apply to just running, either: on a bike, you can sprint from stoplight to stoplight, or pick up the resistance or your cadence on a stationary bike or trainer. You can do 1 minute hard and 1 minute easy while cross country skiing, or alternate a hard 50m with an easy 50m while swimming. Even while walking or hiking you can push your pace for some arbitrary time or to a particular tree. Anything that gets you working harder than is comfortable for a short time will work, then ease off to recover and then try it again.

So, I challenge you: the next time you're tempted to bag off a run - or any other workout - turn it into a challenge instead. Go play with speed, and come out the other side a stronger person for it!

Who knows? You may just find your flow.