My First Interval Session

Today, as the title indicates, is my first attempt at interval training. Intervals are designed to stress your aerobic system to its maximum in order to increase your VO2 Max. For those unaware, a person's VO2 Max is basically the maximum rate of oxygen consumption and utilization during exercise. It's one of the major factors in running performance, and you can improve it by running at a pace that will really push your HR up near its maximum, which stresses the oxygen delivery system. Ideally, about 2 minutes into your interval, you want to be near 98% of your maximum HR. I don't really know what my maximum heart rate is, but I think it's near 190, so ideally I should be above 186 bpm after about 2 minutes in each interval.

Since it was my first time, I wasn't quite sure what would be the correct pace, but according to my trusty book, "Daniel's Running Formula," I estimated it to be around 7:30-7:40 (which I will call I pace, and ~10:20 per mile is my easy, or E, pace). The plan for my workout was as follows:

5-10 min warmup
6 strides
5x(3 minutes at I pace + 2 minutes rest at E pace )
5-10 min cooldown

I would say that the workout (details) felt pretty successful, but I was not able to keep the last couple intervals up to the speed of my first couple. The interval paces were, in order: 7:21, 7:24, 7:36, 7:47, and 8:01. Ideally they'd all be much closer together, but I think in this case it's probably ok because the last two intervals were predominantly uphill. If anything, I probably should've run the first two faster because they included a lot of downhill. I think one of my goals before my next quality training session (by that I mean not just a constant easy pace) is to find someplace nearby that is flat where I can go to train. Hills are good sometimes, but they also get in the way when you have to deal with them on every run.

I'm anxious to see how my next run on Saturday will feel after completing this session today. I've noticed huge gains since I started including threshold pace running into my training, and I'm hoping including intervals will give me another solid boost.