Whoever said slow and steady wins the race lied! Normally when it comes to runs, I’m a pacer. I like to maintain a comfortable speed which enables me to run a decent amount of time/distance. It’s probably a mental block but only 30+ minutes of running leaves me satisfied. Sometimes that’s not always feasible/ appealing so rather than nix my run completely, high intensity interval training (HIIT) solves the issue. HIIT pushes me out of my cardio comfort zone and cranks up the secret ingredient to everything: from losing weight/inches, to burning fat, increasing endurance and sweat levels, raising the intensity every so often is key!
The beauty of the workout is that you’re only out of your comfort zone for a limited amount of time. And in that time, you begin to allow your body to reach a new level and increase your lung capacity. Following yesterday’s post on comfort zones, I thought it was quite appropriate to bring back interval runs. During the high-intensity portion, it was balls to the wall for me and before my lungs collapsed I knew it, it was time for a recovery period.
Obviously speeds may vary according to your fitness levels but here’s what I followed:
| Time (minutes) | Speed (km/h) |
| 0 – 4 | 9.6 |
| 5 – 6 | 10.2 |
| 6 – 6:30 | 12.8 |
| 6:30 – 8 | 9.0 |
| 8 – 8:30 | 14.5 |
| 8:30 – 10 | 8.5 |
| 10 – 10:30 | 12 |
| 10:30 – 11 | 8 |
| 11 – 11:30 | 14.5 |
| 11:30 – 13 | 8.6 |
| 13 – 13:30 | 13 |
| 13:30 – 15 | 8.8 |
| 15 – 15:30 | 13.5 |
| 15:30 – 16 | 9 |
| 16 – 16:30 | 15 |
| 16:30 – 18 | 8 |
| 18 – 20 | 9.6 |
Hey! Thanks for commenting on my guest post so I could come check out your blog!
I love speed workouts like that! So tough. I did one earlier this week because I didn’t feel like getting out for my full 5 mile run. It about killed me more than my run! Great workout!
Thanks for stopping by :)!
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