This morning I celebrated Valentine's Day by wearing pink on my run.
So far, I have gotten my two weekly speed sessions in! I am doing much better this month than last on this goal!
My speed session last week was 4 x 800m, and today was 8 x 400m.
Since I'm new to speedwork, I didn't really know what my interval paces should be. Instead of just going out and guessing, I used the McMillan Pace Calculator. You can plug in your race times (or goals), and it does some crazy calculations to predict what other race times, and your training paces should be. I thought this was a good start for helping me figure out where I should be, even though it make sure to note that these are just estimates.
I don't live very close to a track I can use for my intervals (or at least I don't know of one), so I have been setting my Garmin to help out with that. It's pretty simple -- check out the pictures below. All you have to do is press enter to select. I apologize in advance for the terrible pictures. I attempted to take these while riding the bus this morning.
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Once you have finished entering the distances/times you want, just press enter over Done and you are ready to go! If you are using a warmup/cooldown, it will ask you to hit the lap button when you are ready to start your first interval. From then on, all you have to do is what the watch tells you -- and it even beeps when you start and stop your intervals. So easy!
I think all the other people at the park walking and jogging were wondering what that crazy girl was doing, and what all the beeping was! I got some funny looks this morning.
Have you ever used the McMillan Pace Calculator? If not, I recommend checking it out -- it's pretty cool!
Are you doing anything special for Valentine's Day? Ryan and I are going to yoga tonight, and tomorrow we will cook a special dinner together. Nothing crazy, but so fun to enjoy some time together.
Thanx for sharing the McMillan Pace Calculator! It's pretty darn cool. Love seeing how much my pace has improved since my last race 9 months ago ^^
ReplyDeleteEnjoy yoga with Ryan :)
I haven't used McMillan (until just now, when I went to check it out), but I am a little bit married to Jack Daniels' VDOT charts. Both work on a similar theory: Use a recent race to time gauge training paces. I'm not sure how McMillan came by his numbers, but Daniels' are the result of LOTS of time checking of runners/paces/etc. They are very specific, and I've had quite a bit of success with them.
ReplyDeleteI just did a little comparison - there is a slight difference in how they are used. Daniels doesn't care what your goal is, only what your current performance is. You then train at very specific paces, until you race a new best time - then you can adjust your training paces accordingly. In that sense, it's very progressive.
But a quick comparison suggests that the two (Daniels & McMillan) aren't too far apart, in terms of suggested paces - although McMillan's paces came out slightly faster, given the goal paces that I entered.
Always interesting to see what's out there, and what others are using! And maybe check out Daniels, just to see what he'd suggest for your current pace/goal.
Ooo, thanks for the Daniel's recommendation. Interesting to check out his suggested paces too.
DeleteThank you for mentioning the Mcmillan calc.!! Never heard of it/used it. I'm on it!! :D
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh I'm so impressed by your mastery of the garmin. I have no idea how to do anything with mine. All I ever want is time and pace, but I bet I would benefit from doing the fancy stuff.
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