Some Running Workouts with HR Graphs

Here are some of the workouts I’ve done in the past 10 days as I prepare for a calendar full of races in June. I’ll be doing the Bow Lake 15k, Market Square Day 10k, and the Mount Washington Auto Road Race consecutive weekends in a row. These are in the order I did them and each has a blurb about the workout’s intent.

Monday 4/22

9 rounds

2 min run (treadmill)

2 min air bike

*both at easy/steady pace.

This was my “first” running training of the cycle. I wanted to spend about 40 minutes with my heart rate elevated, and felt like doing it as just straight running would be too much the day after the weightlifting meet so I broke it up with the air bike. This was a good sweat, and it wasn’t as challenging as expected, which was a nice surprise.

Thursday 4/25

Run Locke Trail Loop, CCW

I have a dozen or so ‘test pieces.’ This is a section of trail, a loop, a hill, a mountain, something that I do frequently enough that I have a range of good, okay or bad times that correlate to my fitness. The Locke Trail Loop is down the road from my house and I went out to run it hard, but not too hard. I wanted to push the pace, but keep it under my threshold and avoid gassing out with a mile to go (which has happened many times trying to run the loop too fast.) I ran the loop in just under an hour, and more importantly, my leg muscles weren’t too beat up from it either. I really felt all my extra leg strength during this run, especially on the downhills.

Friday 4/26

As many rounds as possible in 1 hour:

25 cal air bike

25 cal row

25 cal ski

800m run

This was a tough one. I’m strong on the machines, but haven’t used them in months. This was the time domain I was looking for last Friday, and I was looking for a muscular overload style workout that would push my aerobic capacity and have me working at the upper limits, flirting with going too hard. An hour is too long to fake it and you have to pace well on this one. It was fun and just what I needed. My quads were completely blown up afterwards from the combo of the air bike right into the rower and the trail run the day before. This was productive and I’d like to give it a retest soon to see if I can get further into the 6th round.

Sunday 4/28

Run Locke Trail Loop, CCW

A few days after my first loop I headed back to Stonehouse Forest for another go. This time I wanted to run the loop hard, but if my heart rate creeped too high (170s) I was slow my pace until it recovered. This allows me to go fast and improve my stamina without biting off more than I can chew. I shaved 12 or so minutes off my time from earlier in the week, and my legs were feeling it after this one!

That spike in the beginning is from Clem’s interaction with a horse, lol

Tuesday 4/30

4 sets

800m @ hard pace / rest 2:30

The goal of this run was to go fast and push my limits. I wanted to get my heart rate into the 170s and sustain a high output. With a tight rest, each one would get harder. I was planning on trying to go faster each set and if I slowed down from the first one I was done. I’ll try adding volume to this one in the coming weeks.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain