Sunday, January 10, 2010

Andi's cruise intervals

Andi finished her workout today. She ran a 15 minute warm up followed by 5 min at T pace (threshold pace) followed by 1 minute recovery jog, repeated 5 times. So there was a total of 25 minutes at T pace. T pace is about 90% vVO2max or 88-92% of max HR (heart rate). I find an easy way to estimate your T pace is to add one minute onto your time for one all out mile or 1600m.

For example, I can run a 1600m in about 5:15, well once my hamstrings aren't so tight and I get some leg speed back. If I add one minute onto that I get 6:15 pace for threshold runs. This also is the pace that you could run all out for one hour when well rested and properly trained. It is usually a little slower than 10k pace.

Based on her 5k time last July, McMillan calculates 7:04 to 7:13 pace for Cruise Intervals.

Andi executed almost perfectly. She came back and said, "that was tough." The second half of the run is up Rancho Vista (a little hilly). She averaged around 7:00 to 7:15 during the "cruise intervals." Her heart rate was around 170 during each bout at T pace and peaked at 175. Using the 220-age this puts 170bpm at 90% for her.

Her mile splits were 8:13, 8:08, 7:22, 7:12, 7:15, 7:55, 7:43. Total mileage was 7.5 in 58:16 (avg 7:41). I told her to do some form of this running at T pace (total 25-30 minutes) once a week as lately she has just been putting in the easy miles and needed to add a new training stress to her program.

Nice workout Andi! Can you go backwards on that formula I mentioned? If Andi can run 7:10 for T pace then can she run 6:10 for a 1600m? Maybe we will find out at the AVC All Comers meet at the end of the month!

5 comments:

Stutelberg Family said...

WHAT!!!!!

Chuck said...

Andi....Great job on your T-pace workout!

Karl....You really did a great job of simplifying and explaining the meaning of threshold pace. Thank you.

Ron said...

ANDI is straight up machine too! Is it something in the water you guys drink or what? You guys continue to push me...I love it!

Dale Lister said...

Awesome!

Karl, you are mentioning the all comers the last week of the month and Clay has mentioned the one the next week. I realize that there are two all comers meets. Have the two of you chosen to go different weeks?

Karl Stutelberg said...

Dale,
I believe the meets are on Jan 30th and Feb 6th. I plan on being there for both. It is 5 dollars to run as many races as you want! I may run there and run home to make it a higher mileage day!