Today, I went for a prescribed run- I'm a bit behind on crossfit, so it was the pullups and pushups and the 5k that I did today God I miss it! Now, I scored below average for british army times, so I need some way of improving my cardio. My question is, would I be better doing 400m repeats twice a week and a longer run or just stick with something simpler? Cheers
cardio is a very broad term, you not only have anerobic and aerobic energy pathways but you also have the muscular endurance needed to sustain the pace and distance if you want to increase your 5km time 400 repeats will not really help (they are largely anerobic in nature where as 5k are aerobic in nature), not to mention that the muscular endurance needed is also different. No need to make things complicated Run increasing distances on 3 days a week, working up to 5k's or even longer.
I found that running repeated fast/slow sections ramped up my fitness very quickly, both aerobic and anaerobic. It needn't be technical; I just sprinted for 30 seconds then jogged (then walked, then staggered, then crawled) for 1 min 30 secs. I repeated this for about 30-40 minutes. I'm convinced that something about cycling your heart rate like this is particularly beneficial. Mitch
I like fartlek. I do lamp post runs, sprint one, walk one, jog one and so on. If you are fitter than that you could do two lamp posts. If you run in the country lanes pick land marks, hedges, post boxes and so on. Once you have that and after you have warmed up sprint until you are out of breath (anaerobic) then jog until you go back to aerobic and repeat. Gradually it will take longer before you go anaerobic.
Funnily enough, that's exactly what me and fish were discussing earlier. I have to set up the tripod very carefully and get the underwater digital camera pointing in the right way though- it's bucketing it down here
I went for my first 5km parkrun/race today. Came in about midway in the results and 3rd in my age/gender group. Lower distance pace/interval runs do seem to be the way to improve the time. I need to aim to break the 24min barrier http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/training/pace?metres=5000&hr=0&min=24&sec=0&age=41&gender=F&Submit=Calculate
Look into Stew Smith, he's a writer for the US military who specializes on helping troops past physical fitness tests. Training for a 5K under a specific time is different than just regular running, as you have to learn how to pace yourself (same with press-ups and sit-ups). To use this as an example, for me to get maximum score for my 2-mile run for the Army Reserves I need to run it in under 13:18. If you break it down more, that's 6:39 for one mile, about 3:20 for a half mile, and 1:40 for a quarter mile. Now that you know your goal pace, the main thing to do is to get used to running at it. One of my favorite workouts of his is: *Run 1/4 mile at goal pace, then jog/walk 1/4 mile. Repeat 4 times. *Run 1/8 mile at goal pace, then jog/walk 1/8 mile. Repeat 8 times. This way you're getting used to the pace you need to run at. You'll do a lot of interval workouts like this, mixed in with some actual timed runs and the occasional long-distance run, but the key is to constantly be working on maintaining your goal pace. Check out his website for more: http://www.stewsmith.com/ Having talked to the guy via email as well, I can say he's a very friendly guy who will bend over backwards for you as well.