Alternate miles workout

Okay, my 15 miler is in the rear view mirror and it is time to start the next phase of training.

All week long, I have thinking over this workout and didn't decide on it until this morning.

I call this workout alternating miles workout.

Basically, what I do is a 10 mile run where I alternate one hard mile with one recovery mile. I start with a 1 mile warm up and then launch into the first mile repeat. Starting this way can be a little tough on my body because my body normally takes a while for all 8 cylinders to come online. I usually do this workout on the roads so it is over a rolling hill course. Also the miles are measured as the Garmin measures them. That's it.

The rest is about just running and recovering and then running again.

So how did today's workout go.

 

Warm up mile 7:45

1^st repeat – 6:33

1^st recovery mile - 7:11

2^nd repeat – 6:10

2^nd recovery mile – 7:02

3^rd repeat – 6:11

3^rd recovery mile – 6:54

4^th repeat – 6:09

4^th recovery mile – 7:07

5^th repeat – 5:56

Total Running Time: 66 minutes.

Once I read that every workout should have a purpose and if you cannot explain the purpose, you probably should not be doing it. In this case, the purpose of this workout was to push my lactic acid level up in my blood stream. Additionally, this teaches my body to better handle the increased lactic acid levels. Furthermore, this workout does a better job simulating race condition than doing this as mile repeats on a track because on a track, I tend to run the recoveries a lot slower. In this workout I am roughly give myself a 1 minute extra recovery so I never fully recover from the lactic acid overload.

Another benefit of this workout is more of an intangible benefit. This is the mental toughness and confidence. If you can pull off this workout, you start to feel that you are going to be stronger later in races and it gives you the confidence that you can pull it off again if you have pulled it off once during training.

For those planning your workouts for a fall marathon, give this workout a try and let me know how it goes.

 

Sharing one thought at time,

The Cool Down Runner