Wednesday Workout: Incline Intervals And Pushing Pace

Now that my mystery injury seems to be resolving, I am ready to kick my training up a notch, but I still need to be careful. The Rock’n’Roll USA Half Marathon course will have a challenging elevation profile, so I know I need to focus on my hill work. On the other hand, I’m pretty happy with the pace of my recent long runs, so I don’t really *need* to do too much speed work. But, I really love doing speed intervals, while hill intervals don’t seem to give me the same endorphin rush.

Today I decided to compromise and do both!

Warm-Up
0-5 min: walking @ 3.7 mph at 1.5 inlcine
5-7 min: running @ 5.7 mph at 0.5 incline
7-10 min: running @ 6.0 mph at 0.5 incline
10-15 min:  running @ 6.3 mph at 0.5 incline

Intervals
15-16 min (incline): 6.2 mph at 3.0 incline
11-17 min (recovery) 6.2 mph at 0.5 incline
17-18 min (pace): 6.7 mph at 3.0 incline
18-19 min (recovery) 6.2 mph at 0.5 incline

The 60 second intervals seemed too easy, so I switched to 90 second intervals for the rest of my workout. I won’t spell it out, but I repeated this cycle until I reached 50 minutes (including my warm-up):

90 sec (incline): 6.2 mph at 3.0 incline
60 sec (recovery) 6.2 mph at 0.5 incline
90 sec (pace): 6.7 mph at 3.0 incline
60 sec (recovery) 6.2 mph at 0.5 incline

Cool-Down
60 sec running @ 6.0 mph at 0.5 incline
2 min running @ 5.7 mph at 0.5 incline
3 min (walking) @ 3.7 mph at 1.5 incline

(Do you see that running cool-down? I’m keeping my runners’ resolutions in mind!)

I think it was a good workout for where I am in my recovery/training. It was challenging but not too hard and best of all, no complaints from my ITB/glute/piriformis!

 I have several other posts about different speed workouts that I have come up with for the treadmill–they are great for beating treadmill boredom and always generous with the endorphins.

Do you like hill workouts? Speed workouts? Neither?