Shake it off? wrote:
Well in week two I hit the: 4 easy, 5 X 1K, 3 min jog, 4 X 400 R, 400 jog, 2 easy. A sleuth will see that was from the 56 - 70 mile plan but my last three workouts were from the 71 to 85 plan. My maximum week will be around 70 miles. Overreached?
I was going for 4:30 on the 1Ks (yeah slow - age 60 is part of my excuse). Since I want to keep the miles (vs kilometers) in my Garmin I used the time option for the intervals, rather than the distance.
Looking back, I think that once I realized it wasn't happening - I didn't push the pace the way I normally would have. Still surprised by the effort.
I think I know what is the problem. You did the second week with 3 minutes recovery. Then you tried to do it with 2 minutes. The problem lies in your speed. When you do intervals you need between 70% to 90% of the time you spend running the interval for recovery. You ran time of 4:30 at interval effort and then recovered for 2 minutes. That's a recovery of less than 50% of the interval time Wich is too short. That is ok for tempo workouts in JD training but not in interval. I just ran that same workout 2 days ago and did intervals if 4 minutes. I changed the recovery to 3 minutes. And I nailed it.
Remeber that JD tables are written for faster ppl than you and me. Fast ppl will run the km interval in 3 minutes or less which correlates to a recovery of 2 minutes. Remember also that an elite running an interval in 3 minutes will work only 75% if what someone at 4 minutes will. If you give them the same recovery one of them is doing it wrong.
When he gives you a workout where the repetition and the recovery are both measured in time you will have no problem. But when the rep is in distance, try to make the recovery based on percentage of time running the rep.