HELP NEED HELP WITH LINGO!!!
13 08 2008Warm up 15 minutes, dynamic stretching and drills. 3 X 600 meters @ 10K goal pace with 2 minute easy jog between. 2 X 200 meters at a slightly quicker pace. Cool down 15 minutes. wHAT DOES THIS MEAN?? 
3×600..ETC..??? IM SO LOST:(
whoa! crazy, i just commented on it. check out on the forum where you posted it.
I agree this stuff can be confusing… I remember struggling over this when I first started, and then I asked for help people were like… “duh, isn’t it obvious?” and I was like “uh… NO! that’s why I asked!”.
So, here’s what it means…
First off… this is a description of an “interval workout”… which means that it’s got you doing some hard effort work mixed in with some “recovery” time. The idea of this workout is that you’re going to push yourself hard for shorter-ish periods of time, and then give yourself a little mini-break, and then push yourself hard again. It gives you a chance to work harder than you normally can for a long period time. And results in your pushing the “ceiling” of what your body can handle.
So… the specifics…
1) “Warm up 15 minutes - dynamic stretching and drills” - This basically is saying, don’t just start doing your workout right away… you want to give your body some time to “get warmed up”… and since this is an interval workout, your going to be working hard, and so you need to really make sure you ease into it. Everyone has a different idea of what a warm up is, so do what you feel comfortable with. I personally like to do a very easy jog… maybe about a mile. By dynamic stretching and drills they are referring to ideas like doing “lunges” or “butt kicks” or “skipping” which are a form of stretching that you do while moving. I wrote a blog post about it here… http://brad.sweat365.com/2007/01/15/dynamic-warm-up-pre-running-exercises/
2) “3 X 600 meters @ 10K goal pace with 2 minute easy jog between.” - This is the start of your real workout… What it means is: Go run for 600 meters “pretty fast”, then do an easy jog for 2 minutes, then repeat two more times: run “pretty fast” for 600 meters, jog for 2 minutes, run “pretty fast” for 600 meters, jog for 2 minutes. You can see that this is easier to do if you’ve got access to a “track”, say at a local high school or college campus. Most tracks are 400 meters around. Sometimes they are in yards (420 yards per lap) which is “close enough”. So this means “run one and a half laps”.
If you don’t have access to a track, these kinds of workouts can be very hard to do… but you can still do them, you’ll just need to figure out what distance to run. If you have a running computer, it will certainly help you with the distance.
How fast is “10K goal pace”? Well, that’s for you to decide. I’m describing it as “pretty fast”. The idea is that you are trying to “push yourself”. These workouts are designed to help you learn to run faster. You should be pretty tired after running those three laps. Similar workouts might have said something like “@ LT” which would mean “at Lactate Threshold” which would be even faster… and you’d want to run fast enough that you really feel like you couldn’t continue.
The point of the “easy 2 min jog between” is to give you a chance to “recover” so that you can go run another 1.5 laps. On a track, this could work nicely as “jog/walk” around the second half of the second lap… and take about 2 mins to get there. This would get you back to the start line for your next interval.
Don’t rest too much… but rest enough to let your breathing relax and your heart rate come down from the max.
3) “2 X 200 meters at a slightly quicker pace” — Ok, this is the same as above… except this time, you’re only going to run 200 meters (half a lap) and you’re going to run “even faster”. After you run the first half lap, then do another light jog… it doesn’t say for sure but I’d do another 2 min. Then do it again.
4) “Cool down 15 minutes.” — Now you’re almost done… but you can’t just stop and collapse in the middle of the field… you need to jog for another 15 minutes or so and cool down. I might jog a lap then walk a lap.
Thanks for asking… this is actually a really interesting topic that we should write a full blown article about.
Good luck!
and hey, in order to keep from falling off of the workout train, keep yourself accountable somehow. i just started blogging on this site back in may, but it’s quickly become one of my favorite things. i already liked to write, and this place lets me keep track of my workouts, correspond with other people with similar interests, and tell cool stories about my workouts.
another thing you can do is set some respectable goals for each week and then reward yourself if you achieve them. don’t make them so easy that you definitely will, nor so hard that you couldn’t. but the easier the goal, the less cool the reward should be. for example: a farther-out goal of mine is that i’ve decided to get myself a new high-speed modern training watch with GPS, HR and taxi service on it after i run a half-marathon in 1:18. a shorter goal is that i’m going to have a beer on friday night if i don’t take more than 1 day off of training, hit the pool at least 3 times, and bike more than 200 miles, all from sun-fri. that second one is easy, so small reward. the first one is a pretty cool thing, and will deserve a pretty cool reward.