Monday, March 22, 2010

Changing It Up


Just a quick post today. I've decided to tinker with my running schedule in the hopes of maximising my recovery. Trying to run 3 days in a row just wasn't working for me. I'd do speed on Tuesday, have a 10k moderately paced run on Wednesday then try to do an interval run on Thursday. I was getting to Thursday and being too tired to run or just running slowly - as I said, just not working for me.

With three of my days unable to be changed (Tuesday's speed, Thursday's group run and Saturday's long slow run) I was really only left with one alternative - Monday. Monday has a couple of things going for it. It's just after Sunday which I've had as a rest day and have usually slept in AND had a little nap. It's the beginning of the week so I'm always a little more keen to do things. And I'll only have to do two days in a row - after speed session (which is pretty intense) I get a day off.

This is my first week on my changed schedule but it's looking promising. I had a good run yesterday keeping my HR under control and backed up with a pretty good speed session today. We did almost exactly the same session as last week so I could compare times / HR's etc. Last week I did 10 X 400 m with 100m recovery at around 1:44. This week I did 12 X 400m, same recovery at around 1:45. My HR was marginally higher today but it was hotter and I ran more reps. I'm hoping that this change will be a winner.

4 comments:

  1. I am so interested in HR monitoring right now. Thanks for sharing your recent info. I hope this new schedule continues to work you for you!

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  2. It sounds like a very reasonable change to me. I'm still challenged when I add a 4th run day to my week.

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  3. Sounds like a good idea to tweak the schedule. I hope this works out well for you!

    I also do speed workouts on both Tuesday & Thursday with a 10K in between. Sometimes I don't feel like I'm maximizing recovery, but I don't have a lot of flexibility since my long run is on Sunday and I need Monday off, and Thursday's speed session is also with the group.

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  4. I hope the new schedule works for you, too! I feel the exact same way about Monday's....I'm still not recovered from my Saturday long run and feel like my legs are just lead, I have also reduced my Monday's slumpy run.

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