Let the Anaerobic races begin!

Today, my triathlon training plan read: Run 1:00, A2 (5bZ).

Hmm, I had to look that one up. I figured it was speed, because it’s middle of the week. It’s not that I’m following this plan blindly…but I sort of am. My coach in SD recommended Gale’s book, and I trusted that coach because I saw him apply the training plan.

So, the “A” is for Anaerobic or Speed Endurance. The “2″…not sure. The “5bZ” refers to speed intervals where heart rate (HR) rises into zone 5b (172-178 bpm for me). I have known speed work was coming, and I know the only way to get faster is to (duh) do speed work, not train at the same aerobic pace all the time. I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to go about this workout, but the book gave an example of 3 min speed interval with a 3 min rest interval. I have a 5.1 mile loop mapped, so I decided to warm-up for a little over a mile, then do some 3 min speed/3 min rest intervals and see what happened and how many I could do.

For the majority of the run, I felt good and engaged in monitoring the time and HR. All I had to do was get my HR up past the LT and hold it there for 3 min, then slow to a jog. I didn’t worry about getting pace on specific segments of the run, or certain speed – just burn for 3 min, paying attention to HR, then cool down for 3 min. Then repeat. It reminded me of the speed training I did during Team in Training actually.

I would describe the last 1-1.5 miles as suffering. Not fun. Hot. Tired. My HR monitor calculates the average, and I plotted these in excel, with my LT at 168 being the center line. The first two intervals were just over LT, and resting went down significantly. Intervals 3-6 got into z5b, and the HR in the resting gets increasingly higher. Lots of lactate, lots of burn, body slowing down in dealing with it and converting it into energy. Tired.

This is what I will be looking for in future, though – (1) an actual increase in LT (or more efficiency) and (2) a decrease in HR throughout the intervals and (3) stay motivated about it.

AND no foot pain!