Now, let's talk intervals. Before I go any further, I will tell you that intervals SUCK (they suck worse than a blogger that doesn't post for over a month). But, remember that time I said you had to vary your workout to continue to get results? Well, here is a version of that variety and, let me tell you, sometimes your own advice is a hard pill to swallow. When I started my half marathon training schedule, I decided to do some shorter distance interval runs to help me increase my speed. So far it has worked wonderfully and I have set multiple new PR's for my quickest mile... so intervals aren't all bad. I GUESS.
It's no secret that the right playlist/music can get you in a great mood and maintain motivation during your workout (see my post on running music here), so make sure that your tune game is strong before you hit the pavement. Next, it can be pretty easy to start with the best of intentions for an interval run and then fall victim to disinterest, distractions, or an extreme level of dislike for the nasty little bursts of speed peppered into your usually pleasurable run. I highly recommend not tracking your intervals yourself, but using a timer or interval training app to do the thinking for you. My personal favorite is super user-friendly and runs as a background app so you can run it, your music, and Nike+ simultaneously from your iPhone if you so choose. Score! It's called Interval Timer from Deltaworks and looks like this in the Apple App Store:
You can create multiple interval workouts and save them within the app with varying warm-ups, cool-downs, high intensity intervals, and low intensity intervals. Each time your activity level is supposed to change, you'll hear a beep and know to shift gears. I've tried other similar interval apps, and this one is by far my favorite. Enjoy!
