The quickest assurance that your current running shoes needed replacing is when you go for the first run to "break in" the new pair. It's heaven for your feet - especially if the new pair provides the right support for your arches, pronation, supination, etc.
Tuesday morning, at promptly 6 am and 47 degrees, this "mild pronator" brought my new Nike kicks to the local high school track and gave them an hourlong "sneaker, meet feet" introduction with varying sprints and longer intervals.
My feet felt like they were wearing pillows of perfect support, thanks to the helpful staff at Capital City Runners here in town. My quads and hip flexors, however, got a little angry.
This workout is one of those that helps immensely with your speed and cardio power if you're training for a race. These speed workouts, mixed in with your long runs and tempo runs, go a long way to helping you truly reach your maximum performance on race day. If you're simply running to lose weight or build leg muscle strength, these track interval sessions will torch calories and fire up your glutes, quads, calves and hamstrings.
No matter your training motivation, this one will basically burn like a mutha'. If, after the 3rd or 4th round of a 400m loop, you feel like your lungs and heart are popping out of your throat, know that I was right there with ya!
So here it is. This is basically six rounds each of 400s, 200s and 100s. One of my clients pointed out that this is 6-6-6, which was not intentional. But I like to think of this as a "Holy Grail" for the track, and the only devil in this is the Tazmanian we're chasing around the track.
If you can only do 3 rounds of each distance, or 4, or 2, whatever. Just call that your starting point. It's just the beginning - from there, you will get stronger. Believe it!
Warmup: 1600 m jog pace (400m is one loop around the track). Stretch a little if you need before the real fun begins...
The 400s: **Your goal is to do each 400 at your race pace, ideally a short fast 5K. And you want to try to maintain the same time for each of the 400s
- Do six 400s, walking 100m in between each loop to get your wind back.
The 200s: **Try to shave a few seconds off your race pace time since you're only going half the distance, and maintain throughout each of the six. For me, mastering this distance and pace is the toughest, a weird in-between that isn't a 400 yet isn't an all-out sprint.
- Do six 200s, walking 100 m in between each loop. You are regrouping only to ensure you are at full power for the next 200.
The 100s: **These are cake, relatively speaking, compared to the distances you've just done. And it's the home stretch. You've got this.
- Do six 100s, truly sprinting, truly going as fast as you can. Walk 50 to 100 m in between each one. See if you can maintain your sprint speed for each one, or even go faster with the last couple.
Cooldown: Jog 800m, twice around. And stretch!
Coming up: 8x8s on the TRX for biceps, triceps and shoulders