Friday, April 27, 2012

Shake up your run

I wanted to run this morning, but I woke up in an "eh" mood for it.  It was cold and damp outside, so the weather was majorly de-motivating.  I thought I could go to the gym, but then why not just do Spinning? (I can tell you why: Because there would be a substitute who never gets us out of the saddle. Lame.)
Source: Lindsay

Fortunately, Lindsay at The Lean Green Bean had just posted her recap for the week, and in it, she shared a great 4-mile run, that she reports using when she wants to cover 4 miles but isn't in the mood to run fast.  Sounded like me this morning!  See her workout here:

Perfect.  I wanted to run about 4 miles anyway, and, since I know that I'm capable of 3 miles steady at 6.0 mph, this should be right at my fitness level.  I jotted down the outline and hopped off to the gym.

I did tweak it a little bit, turning Mile 2 into a sandwich rather than intervals, and I increased the speed on the intervals in Mile 3, which I really liked.  Also went rogue for Mile 4. 





My run ended up looking more like this:


SO GREAT!  I worked up a sweat without overworking myself.  My heart rate was up almost the whole time--you can see when I was at 4.0 long enough to recover during Mile 2's sandwich.  My average heart rate was 171 beats per minute, and my maximum was 195; I torched 415 calories in 43 minutes!




After the third mile (in 31:30), I was so pleased that I decided to take the last mile at my leisure, letting my music dictate my runs and walks.  I want to thank Lindsay for sharing her routine; the constant change prevented boredom and really made the run go by so quickly!  It was fun.  I would definitely do this workout again!


Have you switched up your walking or running routine, or do you stick to the same pace or interval plan?  If you're in a rut or not in the mood one day, DARE YOU to try this -- or another -- 'shaken up' workout!  If you've got fun ideas to share, please do! 

1 comment:

  1. That sounds like a lot of fun, maybe I would be able to do the treadmill more if I mixed it up a bit

    ReplyDelete

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