Queensland Interval training - week 2

G'day boys,

I wrote last week with the design of the 16 week program that Al (Barramundi) and I are hitting up as a component of our worlds preparation.

wk1 10 x 200m with 200m recovery
wk2 20 x 100m with 100m recovery
wk3 40 x 50m with 50m recovery
wk4 25min of 20m Plyometric run exercises (recovery week)
wk5-16 repeat 4 week cycle, but do the 'on' sections faster.

We did wk2 yesterday.

We are completing these session on grass with cleats on which I enjoy from a specificity point of view. The school has a 398m running track which we broke up into 4 equal segments. We ran the sprints down the straight sides and recovered round the bends.

The pace we set for this first month is at about 75-80% rating of perceived exertion (RPE). I feel like we aren't ready to get right up to 95-100% RPE during the first month and if we tried that then our recovery times would become too long and our intensity would fail towards the end. Our goal for this session was to set reasonable speed recoveries and to be consistent with our times across all 20 100m efforts.

I was mindful of the article that Checking Line 1 sent around during the day which talked about the value of training with specificity and that non specific training is not just less than ideal, it can actually be a negative factor to top end performance. Consequently when Al and I were completing our 20 100s I wanted us to run the 100s at a speed that we could use in a game.

The first 100 was completed in about 17.75secs, recovery was 45sec. This speed feels like a good sprinting start (head down, body low, arms pumping) and then a firm run just below a sprint. I'm going into vague territory here but maybe a canter just below a gallop? Anyway it was hard running with good form and long strides.

The next nine times were in a range from 17.75secs up to 18.86secs i think was our slowest. After half way we crossed some kind of mental barrier and actually brought the times down into the mid 17secs and upper 16secs, we recorded our fastest at about sprint 13 or 14 which was 16.6sec or so. We managed to hold the recovery times to between 43secs and 52secs the whole way through and finished with the last 3 100s being faster than our first effort of 17.75secs. The whole 4km took 21mins 45secs and we were blowing fairly hard by the end.

I was really happy that we kept our times consistent through the whole session, and I feel like we now have a mandate to boost the intensity of the sprints next time we do this session in 4 weeks. The challenge will be the same: maintain our time across the 20 sprints and the 20 recoveries while increasing the speed of the 'on' 100s.

Al and I both played in the Brisbane Premier League (mens highish level league) 2 1/2 hours later last night which we thought might be good tournament simulation with the recovery and then next effort a couple of hours later. I was a little heavy in the legs but played o.k. I still felt like a big fish in a small pond which is how it is supposed to feel at local league isn't it?

I hope the week is going well boys. Looking forward to reading all your stories up on the blog.

Cheers Dingos

Mike