Calling anyone who is knowledgeable about jog/run/sprint!

[Stoozie]

After trying a few interval apps, I realise I am rubbish at varying my own pace between my jog, run and sprint. My Garmin graphs show no real obvious differences between the pace chunks.

So I have just downloaded a metronome timer for cadence.

Can anyone advise approximately how slow the slow run needs to be, ideal pace for moderate and pace for the sprint in BPMs please?

Many thanks

[ju-ju- Graduate10]

We are all different, and it varies... one persons sprint is another's 'slow' jog. I love doing intervals and the C25k speed podcast sets the music to the pace with a slower than faster bpm ( I think its something like 155bpm up to 165 bpm but not sure exactly). When you go 'slowly' really force yourself to slow right down, then for the intervals ( depending on what you are doing) you can really go for it. That's the only way I can think to explain it!!

[Stoozie Graduate10 in reply to ju-ju-]

thanks! Will experiment and see

[damienair Administrator]

Don’t over think it. Break it down to a normal pace which you currently run at, and then a pace which is way outside your comfort zone. Then break it down again into 500 meter intervals. Do this on your current 5K route. Start with a nice warm up for 5-10 mins, then run as fast as you can for 500 meters, then go to a nice comfortable pace for 500 meters, and repeat. If you get very tired in between intervals then take a little break, catch your breath and resume. Keep going until you complete your 5K route.

You will start to notice that your 5K pace will improve greatly. You could gauge your progress at parkrun.

I did this last year and Knocked 8 mins off my 5K time. My PB is now 25:36, I want to go sub 25 this year and will be doing intervals again now myself.

Good luck.

Damien

[Stoozie Graduate10 in reply to damienair]

Wow! Impressive improvements there, and thanks for the sage words

[damienair Administrator in reply to Stoozie]

No problem. It’s really crazy, I too was looking for an app to help me. Then my brother told me that if you want to run faster, just get used to running faster. 5K is considered a short distance to many long distance runners, but I still consider it a good distance. To run it fast you need to get used to running outside your comfort zone. You need to really push yourself. Train every week, do interval training twice during the week, run parkrun at the weekend. But only chase down that PB every 3-4 weeks. Enjoy the other ones, but you’ll still notice yourself naturally getting faster.

My first target was a sub 30 min 5K. That nearly killed me. Then a sub 28 min 5K, and then I found I could go sub 27 and finally sub 26. The day I did 25:36 I was at max effort, I’d given it everything I had.

Interval training is great. If you have a running watch use it to pace yourself. Sub 30 would be under a 6:00 min/Km pace. Set your watch to read average pace during the parkrun.

Damien

[UpTheStanley Graduate10]

Damien's talking about classic interval running, but you asked specifically about jog-run-sprint, which for me is repeated sets of 30 secs jogging, 20 secs running and 10 secs sprinting. As for speed, I take "run" to mean a comfortable (i.e. not PB chasing) parkrun pace and "sprint" to be absolutely eyeballs out for those 10 secs (or as long as I can maintain it if I can't get to 10). "Jog" is just recovery, the first few paces basically a deep-breathing stagger and the rest barely above a walk. So ….. 5 minutes gentle jogging to warm up, 5 reps of 30-20-10, 2 minutes jogging for a fuller recovery, another set of 5 reps ……. and that's enough for me, though I sometimes wind back up to gentle parkrun pace for a k or 2 if I'm feeling good.

My Garmin is not quick enough in response to sudden dramatic changes of pace to show the phases as clearly as you might expect.

Do try Damien's version too … best of luck

[Stoozie Graduate10 in reply to UpTheStanley]

I think it may have been your awesome Garmin graphs I was comparing myself to, did you post some?

[UpTheStanley Graduate10 in reply to Stoozie]

You might be thinking of this thread, though I'm not sure about the awesomeness ….

healthunlocked.com/bridgeto...

You can see how in the later runs of the sets, I nearly come to a dead stop before starting to work back up to a semi-respectable jog, which takes most of the 30 secs available for the jog phase - "Recover-jog-sprint" might be a better description than jog-run-sprint

[UpTheStanley Graduate10 in reply to Stoozie]

I just had another look at that run, to see if it could give any clues about cadence. Very imprecise, with only one dot for most of the sprint sequences, but averaging out, "run" was around 175 for a pace of 5'30"/k, "sprint" around 200 for a pace of 3'15"/k. But I suspect stride length is longer in the sprint, probably contributing more than the cadence uplift (I'll do the maths one day …)

[islandrunner Graduate10]

As ju-ju said, pace is relative to the person.

I did some reading on intervals and faster running, and basically it was saying you have to get comfortable running with discomfort (outside youre usual normal running pace).

There's all sorts of interval plans, and it's really about what works for you. I'm doing something along Damien's lines, but there's no way I could run "fast" for 500m !! (Certainly not at the moment.)

So I'm doing 5 mins jog, then 8 x 1 minute fast, with 2 min recovery jogs in between and a final 5 min jog at the end.

I do this on a treadmill so that the pace can be set by the machine.

Each week I increase the pace of the "fast" bit just by a few seconds per KM and also sometimes increase the pace of the "slow" bit.

So am currently at 6:39 per KM for the fast bit and 9:05 per KM for the slow bit. Started at (many weeks ago) at something like 7:45 per KM for the fast and 9:30 for the slow.

I think, once I've got down to 6:00 per km for the fast bit, then I'll probably consolidate on that for a week or two, then probably look to extend the fast bit from 1 minute up to something higher (maybe just 1 and a half mins initally, then probably aim for 2 mins).

It definately does get easier to run faster, I feel the whole "get used to being uncomfortable when running" does begin to sink into the brain and body. Also I have noticed that my pace has increased a bit when I run outside. Knocked 8 mins off my 10k time (from 1 hr 30 to 1 hour 22).

[UpTheStanley Graduate10 in reply to islandrunner]

I find a treadmill absolutely excellent for the sort of work you're describing - there's no way those baby steps of improvement (the famous "marginal gains") can be precisely controlled in the world outside, what with dogs, pushchairs, wind, rain etc ….

No good for jog-run-sprint though, it doesn't accelerate (or decelerate!) quickly enough .