offshore cpa: running.3

The running club I'm a part of met on Tuesday this week, because Monday was Remembrance Day, a public holiday like the U.S. Veterans Day. (Yes, even the CPAs had off work.) Over the past several weeks, we've been increasing our running times from 30 minutes per session to 54 minutes. The emphasis was to increase our endurance by approximately ten percent each week. This week, however, our trainer implemented interval workouts for my group. This was my first formal interval training experience, and I really liked it. Instead of steady running, we jogged for six minutes, stopped, and then ran hard for 90 seconds in the opposite direction. Although we weren't sprinting, we had to run hard enough to make talking difficult. For those with heart rate monitors on, this would have been about 140-150 bpm. After the 90-second hard run, we took a 2.5 minute break where we walked or stretched and allowed our heart rates to stabilize. Then it was time for another 90-second hard run back in the original direction. We repeated these intervals six times before slow-jogging back to the starting point. Our goal during each 90-second hard run was to cover the original interval's distance, which became increasingly harder with each successive internal. However, what I liked about the whole deal is that we had a more efficient workout, as we were only on the road for about 34 minutes. Also, our leader, KD, ran with my group for the first time since I joined, and she was able to give me personalized tips on running form. Like when I'm running hard, I should be striking the balls of my feet rather than the heels so that I don't create extra resistance. I love having a teacher.

In other running news, those of us who ran the Pirates Week 5k still don't know our official times, but some pictures of the event have been posted: