Tech drama queen signing in, a few of you will know my lovely relationship with Ms Jo Whiley aka Jo Cool with my rapidly changing from love/hate relationship with the Beyond App to being hate/hate
Lots of pausing and lots of frustration. Thanks to sheps I had an idea of what the interval training run would be like, but couldn't seem to find a timer app that would let me set an alarm for each change. Therefore, I decided to strip back to just C25K Beyond with Map My Run and Mechanical Voice Lady in the background to monitor my distance as rather foolishly I've signed up for the run 1025km challenge in 2025 and every km counts. (To be open here, I have no expectation to hit the 1000km + mark it's just a means to keep me at running each month, until such time I'm in total love and fully committed relationship.)
The idea being if I can find out which app is causing the issue I can manage around it. Next test being to drop MMR, which bothers me as I won't register the kms, but needs must.
Then if all else fails I am moving to the Nike app...
That was the plan and in fairness because the sprint intervals are every minute I didn't really miss the music. Naked running has never been my thing, because the music helps provide a useful distraction However, I did miss one fast and one slow interval because, yes, Jo dropped out and whilst I thought I hadn't missed anything when I did my count back I had missed one one minute sprint and one one minute slower run.
Cue much gnashing of teeth - next time out just Jo on her own then and if that doesn't work then I have to shift to the Nike app I think, or maybe see if MMR Professional gives some the opportunity to clone the Beyond Runs.
What was it like - really useful to have the guidance, I'm not sure I could have worked out that kind of sprinting profile on my own. No music, just the arrhythmic sound of my heart pounding and my dainty tootsies doing the same, starting me off. I was happier I was going slower to start, because I regularly, in eagerness, start too fast and fade away. To be clear, I don't have a heart problem it's just the heart and the feet definitely don't follow the same beat.
This was not going to be the plan today, follow instructions to the letter, from the app - I did have my shoulders back, my podge muscles engaged, my arms at 90 degrees and no fists to be seen. A better running style to better my results was the hope.
I deliberately chose Lover's Lane so that my route was more or less on the straight, I didn't fancy sprinting up hills at all. the only obstacle to success was the nagging gremlin in my head telling me I'm about 2 minutes a km slower than 6 years ago and that I never liked sprinting anyway.
Physical obstacles abound in Lovers' Lane from the potholes carefully filled each year by a man with a shovel and a bucket of tar, to free roaming dog walkers (the dogs not the walkers), mountain bikers, and Sunday morning amblers.
Luckily whilst I had gremlins creating obstacles in my head, I only had potholes and three dog walkers to worry about - but one was a local lady who has no control of her dogs whatsoever. She is constantly shouting fermati (stop) and basta (enough). My first fly past (ha ha) involved the little terrier jumping up at his owner and leaving me alone. At my third fly past, I think he realised I was a slightly loopy oversized sheep needing shepherding and he lay on the ground a bit like One Man and His Dog style.
I was thankful for that, the last thing I needed was him chasing me. I did my runs back and forth and at the final one I was quite pleased when Jo told me we were done.
Did it make a difference, well at my best I knocked off one minute from my usual km pace - leaving me about 50 seconds adrift from years ago, but as Oldfloss says comparison is the thief of joy. I am not obsessive but I do want to see if doing interval training can provide me with a little more pace in time.
I give myself 7/10 for effort and Jo similar because she dropped out at two of my intervals, and I still really haven't done the speed test in total. Some consolation in doing 5 out of 6 the sprints, but not the real consolidation. I think that has to wait another couple of runs, because I can definitely feel a bit of DOMS today.
Next time no nudity - music will feature but I won't be monitoring distance - ooh - I'm not sure I'm really ready for that...
2nd consolidation run and hello coach Bennet!
Consolidation 1: Speedy fun!
W5R3... well that was a little more than I was expecting
I ran through the walking bit!
Running with Samantha...
