The only time I could fit in a run today was at lunchtime. With little spare time I decided to try one of the shorter NRC guided runs. I opted for “Find Your Pace” - a 15 minute guided run to help you find out what 10k pace, 5k pace, mile pace and “best” pace means for you. Lots of interval workouts and tempo runs seem to talk about these, but I’ve no idea what that really means in practice, so why not?
The workout was as follows:
5:00 warm up , 2:00 @ 10k pace, 1:30 @ 5k pace, 1:00 @ mile pace , 0:30 @ best pace with 1 minute recovery intervals in-between.
So...
I set off on my warm up at what feels like a slow comfy pace. Then Coach Cory Wharton-Malcom tells me this should feel like an effort level of 3/10 where 1 is really no effort at all and 10 is flat out maximum. Whoa! I’m way too fast again then. Slow down Diane!
After 5 minutes I'm instructed to pause the workout and stretch etc. I press pause, but opt instead to continue on by walking for a couple of minutes.
I restart the workout and time for the 10k pace interval. I learn that this should be an effort level of 6/10. It feels about right for what I’m doing 👍.
After 2 minutes and another 60 second recovery interval I’m instructed to run the 5k pace at an effort level of 7/10 – really? That seems quite high.
After 90 seconds of running and another 60 seconds walking (this is starting to feel like the early weeks of c25k!) I’m told to run the mile pace interval at an effort level of 9/10. I give it nearly everything. This 60second interval feels long! 🥵
Another 60 seconds of walking and I try to go flat for 30 seconds – my best pace. Why oh why does this coincide with an uphill stretch? 🤬
The workout ends and I stop NRC and also pause my watch.
I did quite enjoy this run, but at only 15 minutes it feels like a bit of a cheat. After the workout I carried on around the block, at what I think is my comfy pace, for another 1.3km to reach home. I’ve no idea about the stats for this part as I didn’t record it on my watch as I forgot to restart it.🤦♀
I think this run completely confused my Garmin - unsurprisingly the laps/splits make no sense at all. On the other hand Garmin also liked this run - VO2 Max is unchanged but my fitness age has decreased by one year.
For the record, NRC recorded my pace for the running intervals as follows (Annoyingly its in minutes and seconds per mile so you have to convert it but hey ho!):-
Warmup7:49/km
10k pace7:52/km
5k pace8:01/km
Mile pace6:16/km
Best pace6:06/km
Hmm – somethings a bit odd there. My warm up is faster than both my 10k and 5k pace, and my 10k pace is faster than my 5k pace 😕. I think my school report would say “could do better”.