Possibly My Best Interval Workout Ever

>> Monday, March 18, 2024

... and quickly becoming one of my favorite workouts.

I've written about this 3x (4x400) interval workout before: in April of last year, in Sept of last year, and I even did a version in Jamaica 2 months ago. As I've gotten older, I've shyed away from "longer" intervals like 2x2 miles or 3x1600 for shorter things like this.

Between having a BIG first half of the week WHILE being home with a kid who was getting over Covid, I wasn't sure I'd be doing this workout. I went to bed Thursday night feeling BEAT UP, and then didn't get up early for the track workout on Friday as I felt like I had a 50/50 shot of having Covid. But I took a Covid test when I got up, and it was negative, so I figured I'd hit the track.


Pic of trashed Covid test later in the day
(on top of Clorox wipes and my wife's hair).

This 3x (4x400) workout was to have 1 min between 400s and 3 mins between the sets. I was ready for them to suck being I didn't feel great. There was a college kid out just casually running laps as I was about to start, and his presence pushed me a bit. I didn't look back to previous times/splits for this workout, but I knew early last year that my first set average around 1:18, and then I dropped from there (thinking I was 1:16 for the 2nd set, and 1:15 for the 3rd set).

I took off "strong," and then was shocked when my first interval was 1:14! I knew I couldn't maintain that! The first "test" of this workout would come with interval #2: how much time would I give up? But #2 was ALSO 1:14! I wasn't thinking this would last, but I was also going to keep working and shooting for a solid workout. My first set looked like this:

1:14.6, 1:14.9, 1:15.2, 1:14.2 = 1:14.73 average

That 1:14 average was faster than ANY AVERAGE from this workout, ever!! My fastest version of this workout had the 3 sets being averaged at 1:16.6, 1:16.3, and 1:15.4. And I BEAT THAT on my first set! The goal was to now HOLD ON.

1:14.0, 1:14.6, 1:14.5, 1:13.5 = 1:14.15 average

Holy crap. I was even FASTER in my 2nd set! These times were wild! Sure, it's only a few seconds faster than my best version of this workout, but a few seconds in a 400 while it's only mid-March is a great sign! My legs almost buckled coming around the final turn of my 8th interval, so now it was time to see what I could do in the final set (#9-12):

1:14.8, 1:13.4, 1:13.0, 1:11.3 = 1:13.13 average

Nice. Descending the sets nicely, and descending those last 4 within that final set really nicely! After those 1:13s as #10 and #11, I told myself that I could get down into the 1:12s for #12, but I was able to get even a bit farther under that.


Yep, that's what that should look like.
(Split #2 was still warming-up getting to the track.)


I don't buy that I maxxed out at 153 bpm - my intervals had a higher HR than my cool down.

This one just felt good... especially after feeling so crappy for the 12 hours leading up to this. This might go down as one of my best interval workouts ever.

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Lots of Early March Biking (and a Big First Half of the Week!)

>> Saturday, March 16, 2024

My wife's car has been randomly dying lately, so I dropped it off at the shop on Monday and took my tri bike out of the back seat to get home:


(That was after biking to-and-from class on my mountain bike too!
And a long run earlier that morning!)

Then, being it was nice on Tuesday, I got out for a quick fast ride down the Greenway. I went into the wind for over 11 miles until the Greenway turned into gravel:


New lightrail bridge in the distance (near 169?).

Then I was pushed by the wind for a few more miles to hit 20 kinda-hard-but-not-quite-tempo miles in 58:38 (20.5 mph). After I eased up and then did more along River Road, my overall average actually rose to 20.7 mph because I wasn't fighting the wind any more. After those 2 days, I had worked my way up to 779 "intensity minutes" for the week already:



And then after a run and more biking to class, I biked back to pick up my wife's car on Wednesday. So by Wednesday night, the first 3 days of the week had a tally of over 1,100 intensity minutes:


Nearly the total of the previous WEEK after only 3 days!

Because I work out in the morning (generally), by Thursday morning, I had over 1,300 intensity minutes. Seven out of the previous 10 weeks had 1200-13xx intensity minutes total, and here I hit that after exactly HALF a week (3.5 days). I knew I needed to ease up to end this week as to not kill myself!!

Oh, and that 3 day stretch of random biking capped off a nice first half of March OUTDOORS in the saddle:


Bike workouts are green. And that one purple workout was a trainer ride
(which is not counted in totals here).

I had posted about my 2 nice rides to start the month: my first long outdoor training ride for 2024, and then some 5 mile intervals on the Greenway. And then these 3 days earlier this week added on 17 miles commuting on Monday, 31 miles down the Greenway on Tues, and nearly 19 miles commuting on Wednesday.

That's 138 miles over 12 days in early March!

Compare that to my previous March bike totals:

- 2024: 138 miles
- 2023: 6
- 2022: 0
- 2021: 63
- 2020: 5
- 2019: 23
- 2018: 0
- 2017: 133
- 2016: 61
- 2015: 71
- 2014: 0
- 2013: 0
- 2012: 102
- 2011: 0
- 2010: 35

So previously, I've been over 100 miles in March 2 times, and I already beat those 2 totals this year within the first half of the month. YES, a lot of that is "commuting" and not "training," but I'm happy to be in the saddle, saving on fuel costs, saving on parking costs, and getting in extra little workouts. And the weather is going to be cooling down a bit now, so I might not be getting many more "training" miles outside for a while.

(Now whether any of this translates into any extra multisport fitness is yet to be seen...)

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Friday Funny 2371: Family Memes

>> Friday, March 15, 2024












































Lots more funnies posted all day long on SportsAndLaughs.tumblr.com. HAPPY WEEKEND!!

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Friday Funny 2370: Nostalgic Images


















































More funny things on SportsAndLaughs.tumblr.com.

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