30-20-10 Run

Wooooof, do I have a new kind of run for y’all!  I first found this “style” of running tweeted by @runnersworld earlier in the week and knew from reading that I wanted to try it (because, and I quote “Veteran runners who followed the training for just 7 weeks improved their 5K times by four percent, dropping from 23:03 to 22:16.“).  I am all about getting faster right now, as that is one of my goals for the year – setting 5k and half marathon PRs.  Then just yesterday, one of my Memphis runners posted the same workout on my Facebook wall, which of course I took as a sign that my run today should be the 30-20-10.

Run 87/142 – The 30-20-10 Workout

Location: Nancy Burton Park Straightaway (Quickly becoming my “track”)

Weather Notes: Waited until 10:30 to run, so it was warm.

Distance: 4 miles

Time: 34:49

Pace: 8:42

The Workout:

• Warm up – At least half a mile, I chose to warm-up for a mile.
• Repeat the following pattern 5 times: 30 seconds jog, 20 seconds steady race pace, 10 seconds sprint
• Jog 2 minutes
• Repeat the 30-20-10 pattern 5 times again
• Jog 2 minutes
• Repeat the 30-20-10 pattern 5 times again
• Cool down – I chose to round out my mileage to 4.

Split Time Distance Avg Pace Summary 35:02.8 4.00 8:46 1 8:26.4 1.00 8:26 2 1:05.0 0.13 8:34 3 :32.8 0.07 7:36 4 :27.7 0.06 7:49 5 :29.5 0.07 6:52 6 :32.5 0.06 8:58 7 :30.3 0.08 6:43 8 :27.6 0.06 8:14 9 :29.6 0.07 7:17 10 :29.6 0.05 9:58 11 :31.3 0.07 7:22 12 2:29.1 0.27 9:06 13 :33.0 0.08 6:54 14 :27.9 0.05 8:46 15 :29.0 0.06 7:42 16 :29.9 0.05 9:34 17 :30.7 0.07 7:02 18 :29.3 0.06 8:43 19 :30.6 0.07 6:51 20 :29.4 0.05 9:21 21 :30.9 0.08 6:41 22 2:30.4 0.24 10:32 23 :30.0 0.07 7:06 24 :29.0 0.05 8:54 25 :30.9 0.07 7:39 26 :29.7 0.05 9:49 27 :29.7 0.07 6:39 28 :31.4 0.06 8:59 29 :29.7 0.06 7:42 30 :28.6 0.04 12:02 31 :30.6 0.06 8:20 32 7:01.0 0.66 10:38

My speed intervals (the 20 and 10 second segments) are in bold in the table above.  My pace for the most part is right where I want it for my 5k in a few weeks.  As far as the workout goes – it went by very quickly.  It’s not something I would chose to do on a day where I need to think some stuff out on my run, but when I need a workout that makes me feel challenged – this will do it.  I took my heart rate a few times throughout the run and it was definitely in the 80% range (which is right where I want it for performance enhancement), despite the 30 second jog breaks every time.  I can explain that to you in physiological terms if you want sometime….thanks summer school.

Anyway, my plan from here is to keep this workout in once a week until the Gibson Race (repeating the 5 rounds 3 times) and after that increase to repeat the 5 rounds 4 times.  Let me know if you give it a try!