It’s time I publish my workout.  This will make me rich.  To prep for the Bolder Boulder, in order to best my 41:11 from 1990 in a race against time, I’ve been running intervals.  Telephone pole intervals.  No one else does this.

An interval workout consists of running repetitions, such as 8 x 400 meters, at perhaps 75% full speed for the distance; but the emphasis is on the rest interval.  You don’t allow your heart rate to fully recover before starting the next repetition.

Coaches would have you run a defined distance, 400 or 800 meters.  My favorite in college were mile intervals.  I could run four or five of them averaging 4:40 per mile.  I could maybe run mile intervals now at a 6:40 pace.  Maybe.  But not by myself and that’s the point.  There’s no way I could run such an intense interval workout by myself.  I’d need the support of a team to run alongside of me and push me.

My telephone pole intervals are a much shorter distance.  Actually, I’m not sure of the length.  I run for two poles, then jog super slow for one pole, and repeat.  I’m guessing these poles are spaced about 100 meters apart.  Probably a little less.  And I don’t time myself.  I start out at about a 60% pace of what I could sprint the distance to the first pole, then increase my pace to 80% all out to the second pole.  This provides for somewhat of a warmup so that I don’t hurt myself.

The primary objective of intervals is to increase anaerobic threshold levels and your body’s ability to run depleted of oxygen.  Supposedly your body adapts to running in oxygen debt.  I’m probably not getting much of this anaerobic benefit since I am running such a short distance, but my focus is really more on teaching my legs to run fast and form.  Muscles have to be trained.  I don’t want to simply run sprints, because I would probably hurt myself.  Plus, I’m running this as part of my 8 mile runs.  After my 4 mile turn-around, between 83rd St. and Ogallala Road.  The overall distance is about a half mile.  Then I continue my normal pace for the remaining 3 miles of my distance run.

This is how a 53 year old runner, sans training partners or team, or watch, runs intervals.  The first test of the success of my telephone pole intervals will be this Thursday at Shoes & Brews.  I plan to run a half mile time trial to get myself on their beer board.  If I qualify, my half mile time, ideally under 3 minutes, will be the price I’ll pay ongoing for beers.