Friday, April 27, 2012

Training vs. Working Out

My gym routine is always kindof the same: go to gym, hop on treadmill, insert headphones, run at set pace for 5 miles, watch TV, try not to look at how much time I have left, finish, stretch, shower.  It allows me to zone out, decompress, get a good run in and notch another work out.  I have always read articles "Ways to make your treadmill workout exciting!" and things like that and they all universally recommend interval training.  I have some experience with intervals on a treadmill when I was following the FIRST program for last marathon.  FIRST is the "Run Less, Run Faster" philosophy, but the runs are really, really hard. 

Last night I thought, eh,what the heck I will run some intervals.  My plan: 1 mile warmup, then half a mile fast, half slow.  In other words a 4x800.  I tried to program the workout into the treadmill, and gave up after 3 minutes of fiddling.  I would just do it manually.

Wow, it was a real kick in the pants.  Overall, I went the same distance in a pace about twenty seconds per mile faster (so really not that much difference; for treadmillites, that is a 0.3 mph difference, or the difference between running at 6.7 and 7.0).    I was completely spent, and even exhausted.  Went home and just about collapsed.  It also reminded me how hard the FIRST workouts really were.

Just goes to prove the old saying: don't just workout, train for something.

5 comments:

  1. Congrats on a difficult workout!

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  2. hard workouts are awesome as long as you recover right. i love doing sessions on the treadmill because you can control things a bit better. Yesterday I did this 50 minute 3 on 3 off thing. On - really fast, off - jog. i was spent. You take care and good to read on this stuff.

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  3. The first hard workout after some time off from them is always the hardest! Totally agree, though, it's smart to have a purpose for your runs and to be training, not just randomly working out.

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  4. I think intervals are the only way to make indoor workouts bearable. Yes, they do kick your ass, but in a good way! Congrats!

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  5. I totally agree with you. You need goals to motivate you to train. Otherwise you're more apt to just repeat the same workouts at a comfortable pace all the time! That having said, what are YOUR goals? :)

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