On Tuesday of this week (October 4th) I ran with two friends and fellow residents, Daniel and Matt, at Green Lake. The weather was gorgeous – mid-60s, clear skies, not at all what I was expecting for Seattle in October. And the leaves are brilliant reds and yellows too! 
We started by running the 2.8 mile trail around the lake as a warm-up, and then engaged in (drum roll, please) – INTERVALS. <gasp> I attempted several half-mile intervals when I first started training for the London Marathon. Daniel had done intervals two years earlier while training for a triathlon. Matt could not remember when he had last done them – and honestly, the last set of serious intervals I ran were probably in high school.
Initially Daniel suggested starting with eight sets of 400m with a cool-down 200m in between each and with a goal time of <75 seconds. After the first round it was obvious that are goals were going to change. Here is how the workout went for me (I don’t have each of the recorded times for my running cronies):
- 400 meters – 1:33.93
- 400 meters cooldown – 2:37.77
- 400 meters – 1:30.19
- 400 meters cooldown – 3:15.83
- did not participate in the third interval, but ran cooldown lap at 2:57.47
- 400 meters – 1:32.38
- 400 meters cooldown – 2:59.43
So in summary, I ended up doing only three 400 meter intervals, and it just about killed me (not seriously, but it hurt a LOT). So while I am growing more fit over longer distances, my sprinting could really use some work. The plan is to meet Daniel and Matt again next Tuesday for another interval workout, and this time I’m going to make it through all four. I’m also setting a goal time of beating 1:30 on all four of them. We’ll see what happens!