Hate Running Intervals on the Track? There is an Alternative!
I don’t like to run intervals on the track at my local high school. It’s too far away, it takes too long to drive there, and I don’t want sweat stains on the seats in my car.
Instead, I run almost all my interval workouts on the road. Here’s how to do it:
- Get on Google Maps and look for a quiet neighborhood close to your house that has a loop that is between 0.5 and 1.0 mile around.
- Scout the location and make sure that the pavement is in good shape and that there is good visibility.
- Program your GPS watch for an Interval Workout. I typically use 5 x 1000 m (0.62 miles) with a Rest Interval of 3:00. I do the intervals in about 3:45.
If you don’t have a GPS watch, you can measure off a course using your car, a GPS-equipped cell phone, or other device.
Expect to get some strange looks. I try to do my interval workouts early in the morning, before most people are up.
Watch out for cars. They may not be used to someone running at that pace and you may surprise them. I had one car try to stop me to ask for directions, when I was running at close to a 6 minute per mile pace!
Try running intervals on the road (carefully) and let me know how you make out in the comments.
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