Run Club – January 31st
By Darnelle Tuesday, 31 January 2012
What the heck is a “tempo run”?
Is it hard? Is it easy? Is it long? Short? Huh?
The tempo run is an often neglected and misunderstood aspect of a well rounded training plan. The best way to describe it is “comfortably hard” or “uncomfortably comfortable”.
The tempo run was popularized by Jack Daniels, Ph.D., about 10 years ago in his book Daniels Running Formula (Human Kinetics).
According to his definition the following principles should apply:
How long? Nothing more than 20 minutes. Can also be done as “cruise intervals” of 1 mile or 10 minute efforts with 2-3 minutes rest in between.
How fast? If measuring the workout based on “pace” you should try to maintain your “tempo” at approximately 20-30 seconds faster than 5km race pace.
How hard? For novice runners it is sometimes easier to judge by effort level. A tempo run should feel about an 8 out of 10 on an effort scale and roughly translate to approximately 80-90% of your maximum heart rate reserve (for those novice runners who are just learning about heart rate training zones)
Why? These types of runs will improve your Anaerobic Threshold (AT). And trust me, this is something you want to have improved! Your anaerobic threshold is the effort level just below which your body’s ability to clear lactate, a by-product of carbohydrate metabolism, can no longer keep up with lactate production. If you stay below this level you should be able to run “forever” (not really but close if you continue to fuel properly) The higher your (AT) the faster you will be able to run without the build up of lactic acid in your muscles.
Our Run Club workout tonight will consist of a warm -up and then a 1 mile tempo interval done at your “comfortably uncomfortable pace”. I get to be the pace bunny and we will all stick together! We will not be a the track but we will be running on a 1 mile loop so everyone will meet up after the 1 mile is finished just in case you would like to run it a little faster. We will then do a recovery interval, conditioning drills and cool down.
See you tonight! We leave the studio at 6:30pm sharp and will head over to the basketball courts at Mackenzie Elementary school.
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Run Club – Jan 10th
By Darnelle Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Run Club tonight is “back on track”.
We will leave the studio at 6:30pm and head to Memorial Park Track.
Tonight’s workout is strength endurance intervals….this is a general “feel good” run interval workout where you will be running the specified distances at just a little faster than your 10 km pace with nice recovery breaks in between. For those that are looking for personal best 10km times in the near future we can push those intervals a little faster! For those training for longer distances we can slow down your interval times reduce your recovery time in between intervals.
Warm – up:
Run to Memorial Park and around the outside of the entire park.
1 lap A’s, B’s, cross overs, kick backs
1 lap strides (3x 50meters)
Workout:
1x 400, 1x 800, 1x 1200, 1x 800, 1x 400 recover (2 – 1:30 mins between each)
Cool down:
2 laps easy
Learn MoreRun Club Workout January 3rd
By Darnelle Tuesday, 3 January 2012
First Run Club Workout of 2012!
“Baseline”
Leave studio at 6:30pm – head east to Memorial Park
Easy warm up run 15 mins
Track Drills – A’s, B’s, lateral steps and cross overs
2 laps of 100 m strides
Workout is a 1 mile time trial. To be done just above your comfort zone. Should finish feeling like you don’t want to do another one.
Easy cool down run 10 mins.
See you tonight!
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