I pushed myself a little bit last night during my run. I’ve been running on the treadmill at work for, oh, about the last four weeks or so, three times a week, like clockwork. And because running on the treadmill is so boring, about all I can stand is 30-40 minutes at a moderate pace (meaning 5.2 – 5.5 mph or so), which definitely taxes my cardio-vascular system but doesn’t seem to lead to improvement, as far as I can tell.
So starting last week, and continuing this week, I added a speed workout that I call the “ladder”.
Here’s how I worked it: five minutes at the normal pace to warm up, then 5 minutes at a “fast” pace, which meant 6 mph or a 10:00/mile pace. Then four minutes at the slower pace to rest, then four minutes at the faster pace, then three minutes rest and three minutes fast, and so on.
Last night, I actually slowed to a fast walk for most of the rest segments, which felt like cheating, but to make up for it, I increased the fast segments by 0.1-0.2 mph each fast segment, until the last one minute fast segment was at 6.6 mph (or about a 9:06/mile pace).
This morning, my legs feel a bit sore, which hasn’t happened in a while. I’m hopeful that means I will benefit from the speed workout in both stronger legs, and stronger cardio-vascular heart-beatin’ oxygen-breathin’ power.
Time will tell.
In related news, I’m still following the 100 pushups program, and this morning managed a set of 5/6/4/4/9, which is an incremental improvement over Monday’s set. Once this week’s exercises are done, I’m supposed to do another exhaustion test and then use that to re-calibrate. Not sure I’ll be able to do 20 in a row, still, like @mizd did, but I’ll manage more than 4, I’m sure.