First postgrad intervals

[Daisy333]

I know that to get faster I must do intervals but since graduating a few weeks ago I've been happy to run for 30 minutes or do a very slow 5km run. Last night I decided that I must do some intervals or speed training. My friend, who posts her runs on facebook and runs twice as far and a lot faster than me, messaged me to advise me to do intervals once a week to get faster as this had really helped her with her speed. This gave me the encouragement I needed.

I listened to the 5k+ podcasts and decided that they weren't for me. I downloaded some podrunner intervals and listened to them but got confused with when to run and when to walk so I decided to go back to Laura and week one.

I went out the door last night feeling that I didn't want to do intervals as I thought it was going backwards and I am a proper runner and wanted to run without stopping. I remember weeks ago I really struggled with week one. The slow runs for one minute nearly killed me. Last night I sprinted those one minute runs and couldn't believe how fast I was going. The feeling was great. I'm definitely going to do intervals once a week now and maybe even try the podrunner podcasts.

I wonder if I'm so slow because Laura has been telling me to go slow all these weeks? Anyway it's given me motivation and the confidence that some day I will be a faster runner! There's no way I could have sprinted for 60 seconds back in March.

[Oldgirl Graduate]

Youv'e hit the nail right on the head about Laura saying take it slow and steady. For the simple reason slow and steady to a great big tall 6' guy would be fast running for me at 5' tall. But once you have the 30 minutes in the bag you can then work on a faster time, may be even stretching your stride, perhaps on the flat or down hill which will give you added speed. When I graduated 2 years ago the C25K+ podcasts hadn't been brought out so I did interval training using lamp posts as a guide. It worked well and I just used my own music. Mix up your running try and slot in some hill work too, its probably the last thing new runners want to tackle but its good for building strength and stamina. Good luck and enjoy your running.

[Daisy333 Graduate in reply to Oldgirl]

Thank you. Lots of hills here so I will build some hill running into my training too!

[ju-ju- Graduate]

That's fantastic... Well done you!