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Today with have the letter I, which stands for Interval Training.
We discussed this a little in our first post for the letter A, interval training is a way to improve your aerobic capacity. Intervals are designed to help a runner improve speed and power and it also helps to improve running form and economy.
If you refer to the Jack Daniels Running formula, interval training session will usually be performed at about 97% to 100% of the runners max heart rate and should be approximately 8% of the runners weekly training volume. For example, if the interval training session would be about 4km to 5km in length(not including warm up and cool done) if the runner was doing about 50km of training per week.
Each interval should last between 3 and 5 minutes, with a similar amount of recovery. Compared to a tempo run, interval runs should be performed at a high intensity were the runner is struggling to get through the interval. The recovery is very important as it should give the runner enough time to recover and be ready to perform another set at the same high intensity.
Interval sessions will fit in well in a weekly training plan as they give a runner a break from the usually steady state running, but usually require an easy training day or rest day before and after the training session is performed.
If you missed my earlier posts, you can see them at the following link:
@run.vince.run/the-abc-s-of-running-the-letter-a
@run.vince.run/running-abc-s-b-is-for-bq
@run.vince.run/the-running-abc-s-c-is-for
@run.vince.run/d-is-for-doms-in-the-running-abc-s
@run.vince.run/running-abc-s-e-is-for-epoc
@run.vince.run/continuing-our-running-abc-s-f-is-for-fartlek
@run.vince.run/g-is-for-glutes-in-the-running-abc-s
@run.vince.run/in-our-running-abc-s-h-is-for-heart-rate-zone