All about that pace.

Great workout RT! Those "offs" aren't very slow either :-)

They're a lot slower than they were when I did 3/4 off last week :)

Nice run. A lot of those 1/4's were way faster than 5:30. You are totally ready for a shorter rest interval than 1/2 mile.

Even better, do 800's instead of 400's, or you could do a ladder workout:

400m, 600m, 800m, 1000m, 800m, 600m, 400m, all with 400m rest.

But I keep forgetting that you just ran two marathons... You are CRAZY!

Way too complicated Carl. Its much easier to set the garmin to autolap at 1/4. Next time I'll do 1/4 on 1/4 off, and see how many reps I can do. I have a feeling that my cool down will be a lot longer than one mile if I want to get in 10 miles total.

1/4's with 1/4 recovery will be a lot better than 1/2 mile recovery. You will get a lot better stimulus for physical adaptations from your intervals. This is because it takes a certain amount of time to get your body to perform at VO2max. With less recovery between intervals, you spend more time at VO2max (which is a good thing).

Ideally, you should be doing this on a track. I know the high school track is closed, but what about a middle school or elementary school? You could also figure out a course that's approximately 400m in Ft. Steilacoom Park.

When you find a pre-measured course, just use the LAP button for the start and end of each interval (that's what it's for).

If you really feel like you have to be a slave to the GPS:

800's shouldn't be too complicated with autolap set to 1/4 miles...

Or you could pre-program the ladder workout on your Garmin before your run.

If you are worried about a long cooldown, just do a longer warmup. Don't let your mileage goals dilute your interval workout by trying to spread the intervals out evenly through your run. Try doing a 4 mile warmup, 3 miles of speed, 1.5 miles of recovery, and 1.5 mile cooldown.

What's the difference between hitting the lap button every quarter and letting the Garmin measure it and mark the lap for me? The latter let's me do intervals anywhere. The park has a long, straight, and nearly flat path that seems to work well enough. I can set my garmin to autolap at any distance I need. I'm not a slave to the GPS, it's just easier and I'm lazy. I'm not really worried about a longer cooldown, I was just implying that I'll probably wear out long before I can cover 8 miles doing 1/4 on and 1/4 off.

Hitting the lap button gives you better flexibility:

[start]4 mi 30:00 (warmup)

[lap]800m 2:45 (fast)

[lap]400m 2:30 (recover)

[lap]1000m 3:26 (fast)

[lap]400m 2:40 (recover)

...etc...

[lap]1.5 mi 12:00 (cooldown)

[stop]

The data will be stored on the watch and your computer in a more readable format. You also have the flexibility to set your recovery interval based on time instead of distance (e.g. 2 min recovery, instead of 400 meters)

It also gets you into the habit of hitting the lap button at each mile marker in a race. I find this is better than autolapping. Ever notice how your watch (usually) records a longer distance than the measured course? Part of the reason is from not taking the tangents on every turn, and part is because certified road races have to add-on a certain percentage to ensure the course isn't short. If you depend on the pace data from autolapping, you'll always run the course too slowly. (make sure your pace data field is set to lap pace)

I thought the comment of being a "slave to the GPS" was interesting. We used to say "don't be a slave to the track" because many runners would do too much training on the track to ensure they were running an exact distance. Now runners aren't getting the benefits of track training because of their GPS!

I'd be beat up from alternating hard and easy quarters for 8 miles too! I guess you have to determine what the purpose of your workout is. From what I've read, it sounds like you want to blast out a fast 5k. That means spending time at or near your maximun heart rate to enhance your aerobic capacity:

If you run those intervals too fast, you will not be able to do as many of them because you get too tired out.

If you rest too long between intervals, you won't spend as much time at maximum heart rate because too much effort and time is used just to get back to maximum heart rate.

If the intervals are too short, you never get to max HR.

At first, you shouldn't do more than 2-3 miles worth of hard intervals per week. Eventually, you could work up to 5-6 miles per week. Most of us FRB guys should stick to intervals of 400-1200m. The faster ones could do 1600m intervals.

What you are currently doing is great! I was just suggesting 800s with shorter recovery because it can give better bang for your buck that way.

All this talk about intervals makes me want to do them. It's so hard to hold back, but I'm still building a base right now.

Looks like FRB edited out my start/stop and lap buttons from the above post, probably because I enclosed them with greater-than and less-than signs and FRB thought it was html. I'll try to edit that.

Wow....It's complicated...!

I Just Run. :-)

I really appreciate all the input Carl. I'll probably get there eventually.

Mike, you're doing awesome! I'm just a walking encyclopedia of running theory.

IJR, Just remember that getting in the miles injury-free is the most important thing.