Last night I had my first strength workout with the Hansons Marathon Method. My schedule called for 6 x 1 mile repeats, with 400m recovery in between. I felt the same way about this first strength workout as I did about my first track workout (12 x 400m): terrified. But despite these Hanson brothers seeming crazy, they continue to outsmart me by knowing what I’m capable of better than I do. And by that I mean the workout went pretty well.

I headed over to Bisset Park, because most of the trail runs along the river and is flat. These strength workouts are too long to be done on a track, so the Hansons recommend finding a flat stretch of trail and that’s what I did. I even figured out how to use the interval setting on my Garmin…. mostly. We’ll get to that in a second.

I started out with a 1.25 mile warm up. I had my interval workout set up on my watch to include a warm up, and it displayed the lap time on top and the distance on the bottom. Good enough. Once I finished my warm up I hit the lap button and took off on my first interval. Less than two minutes later I glanced down at my watch and I saw 0.86 on top and 6 on the bottom. What the heck!? Where’s my pace? Where’s my time?? I had no idea. So I ran the first one mile repeat blind. I suck at packing, guys. Once I finished my first mile and the recovery, I stopped briefly to figure things out… and realized all my other screens were still there. I just had to scroll through. Good grief! So I quickly changed the settings so I would only see the interval screen (which displayed the distance and the number interval I was on) and a second screen that would have my current lap time and lap distance. Things went more smoothly from there. My goal was 10:08 for each mile repeat, 10 seconds faster than marathon pace.

Mile 1 – 9:40 (running blind)
Mile 2 – 9:52 (okay, so that one was my fault)
Mile 3 – 9:53 (well, at least slower than #2…)

I think I run these a bit fast because I’m afraid of missing the interval. The 400m recoveries felt pretty short, but I felt pretty strong throughout the workout. It was tough, don’t get me wrong. Did I mention it was close to 90 degrees at the start of my run, and had only cooled down to 80 by the finish?

During interval number 4 I inhaled a bunch of bugs. It immediately made me gag and I actually threw up in the grass on the side of the trail without ever stopping. You’re welcome for that visual. But now you know how bad A I am 🙂 Seriously, though, it sucks to run when it’s so buggy out.

Mile 4 – 10:10 (see what happens when I back off towards the end to hit 10:08… oh and the bug incident)
Mile 5 – 9:52 (well, we’re back to the 9:50’s)
Mile 6 – 9:58 (close, but no cigar)

Overall this workout went really well, which surprised me. It was double the work load from my track workouts, with less rest relative to the interval length. I think I will be doing the rest of my strength runs at Bisset Park. I may even try this week’s tempo run there (on Thursday), since I’ve been in a kind of funk with those runs.

It looks like Tuesday workouts continue to be my favorite. Next week I’ve got 4 x 1.5 mile repeats, with 800m recovery in between. Harder or easier than this week? We shall see. Oh! I meant to mention when I completed my interval workout my Garmin displayed “Workout Complete!” and played some celebration music. (no joke) If that doesn’t make you want to complete an interval workout, I don’t know what will!

Have you ever swallowed a bunch of bugs?
Has anyone else ever used the interval setting on their GPS watch? Very confusing at first, but ended up working really well!