Non-Track Intervals "Up North"

If you’re a Facebook friend or an Instagram follower, you’ve been seeing a lot of “up north” posts as the boys and I were up by Ely and then Grand Marais for 6 days last week. One of those days, I hit a paved trail for some intervals.

The workout was an older one from my team’s running coach:

I’d done this workout 2 times before (basically 2 years ago and 1 year ago), and the plan for this workout was the same as in the past: run them much harder than 10K or 5K pace. These were going to hurt!

I set my Garmin to 0.25 mile intervals, so TECHNICALLY these would be just a bit long compared to 400s or 800s (because a 400 meter lap on a track is nearly 2 meters short of a quarter mile, and therefore an 800 is nearly 4 meters short of a half mile). But the difference is just 0:01 or so. So the same idea.

I ran up the long hill from Lake Superior for 1.5 miles, or until split #6...

...then I wandered back a bit to start my intervals a little to the east on the “flattest” part of this trail. I didn’t want to turn around DURING each interval, so I ran the first one “out” and then the second one “back.” (I miss having a sip from my bottle after EVERY interval, and I miss the consistency of a track. #spoiled) Here’s a look at the start/finish area afterwards with lots of slow wandering around to the left, and SPEED to the right:

Turn around area for my 800s.


Close-up of the intervals. Yes, there was a “Putt and Pets”
where I got to watch goats play in-between my 400s.

I expected these to be a BIT slower as it’s not as perfect of a surface as a track, and I also couldn’t glance at a 200 meter split to “check in.” My last 2 interval session last month (that both had some 800s) started with the first 2 over 2:40, so I was pretty thrilled to see my first one last week clock in at 2:35. I was going to try to keep them fast. Here were my splits from my 4x800 with 2 mins rest, followed by 4x400 with 90 sec rest:

1:18.4 + 1:17.3 = 2:35.7
1:18.1 + 1:18.0 = 2:36.1
1:17.8 + 1:15.2 = 2:33.0
1:18.3 + 1:16.4 = 2:34.7

1:13.5
1:12.4
1:14.2
1:13.9

800 ave: 2:34.88
400 ave: 1:13.50

I was QUITE happy with those! My legs were FRIED.

A year ago, 3 of my 4 800s were slower than my slowest this year! My 800s were 3.5 sec faster on average this year, and my 400s were 1.5 sec faster this year!

And 2 years ago, ALL of my 800s were slower than my slowest one this year! My 800s were 5.5 sec faster this year, and my 400s were again 1.5 sec faster this year.

But I don't know how much of a difference it made not running these on a track. Maybe it's a little of a false comparison. I'm not totally sure.

Pace chart for the entire run.


Elevation. Notice I tried to find an area with minor changes to run the intervals.


The overlay shows the highpoint in each 800, and the UP or DOWN 400s
(that don’t really show in my splits, interestingly enough).

I hope to have some pics from "up north" later this week (if I find time to get through some photos), so stay tuned!In the meantime, you can see some pics on Instagram.