Tag Archives: interval training

Tracking training

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I’ve got to say that I love my new watch, the Garmin Venu 4. I’ve been very interested in tracking my training, but have only been tracking my number of training days until getting the watch. Now I get to see what my speed and heart rate are during my workouts, among other things.

I try to do most of my workouts in Zone 2, but my watch says I’m actually in Zone 3. My next bit of research is determining if I’m going harder than I should or if I am just in good condition for my age. More data needed before I decide.

Today was my second time with my watch on an interval run. I do a warm up walk then 8 intervals, high intensity for 1:15 and low intensity for 1:10 eight times, then a cool down walk. The high intensity is really just for a minute and about 3 seconds because it takes 12 seconds to get the treadmill from 3.4 at low intensity to a range between 8.6 to 9.4 for my progressively faster high intensity intervals.

What’s really awesome is getting the data about my workouts from my watch. Here is just some of the data:

This is just my second data point for intervals so I’m creating a baseline from which I can hopefully see progress. Until now my only data has been how tired I feel. Now I can dig a lot deeper and actually see gains. I can also make sure that I’m training at the right pace. High intensity intervals aren’t exactly fun. Collecting data on them and getting results to compare over time will make them just a little bit more enjoyable.

Doing hard things

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My workouts have stagnated a bit recently. I’m doing the minimum, but the good news is that I’m still showing up. Yesterday I did my first interval training in about 3 or 4 weeks. I want to do it weekly, but I haven’t made it part of my routine yet.

The reason I haven’t made interval training part of my regular schedule yet is embarrassingly simple: It’s really hard. The purpose of doing intervals is to maintain and improve my Max VO2 levels. To increase Max VO2, I need to not only do intervals, but do them at a very physically taxing level. That’s hard to do when just showing up is a challenge for me right now. But yesterday was a day off work and so I used the day as an opportunity to get an interval workout in.

I did a warm-up then eight 1-minute sprints. My sets are actually 1:15 hard and 1:10 easy, because it takes about 13 seconds to get my treadmill from my easy recovery speed to full sprint and I want the sprint to be a full minute. It’s not fun, but it’s much easier than the Norwegian Protocol which is four 4-minute sprints with 3-minute rest intervals. And I think that’s going to be my ticket to get back into regular intervals. When a task is hard to do, break it down into something more manageable. I can talk myself into 1-minute sprints even when I’m not feeling fully motivated… four 4-minute sprints feels like torture right now.

Through all this I’ve still been very consistent with my zone 2 training, but I think even that has not been ideal. I’m not sure how effective I’ve been because I haven’t been tracking my heart rate and so I’m not certain if I’m getting and staying in the zone. That’s changing this month, when I buy myself a Garmond watch, then I’ll really be able to track my cardio workout progress. I’m hoping the extra data will help motivate me to push myself.

When consistently doing hard things, maintaining motivation is important. I’ve become a master at showing up. My dedication to my workout habit is unwavering. Last year I did 326 workouts, and I’m on schedule to be around that total this year. I know how to show up! But if I were to rank myself on an intensity scale, this year would be much lower than last year. So my focus is to finish the year hard and strong. And I’m fortunate that I’ll have the tools to help track this. It benefits no one to lie to myself about how hard I’m working, and so the extra data the watch will give me will both inform me, and keep me honest about my progress.