The Thrill of Victory

I hate Jeff Galloway. I love Jeff Galloway. I curse Jeff Galloway with every step I take in my Brooks Infinity running shoes on interval training day. I praise Jeff Galloway with every thud of the shoes on the treadmill. I WILL NOT give up! Sweat drips down my back. I want to adjust the speed of the treadmill so bad. I watch the timer. 2 minutes, .25 miles....I CAN do this. I tell myself to stop watching. I try to focus on my posture. Butt kicks, landings, leaning forward, hands relaxed, high knees. Anything, but watching the seconds tick by faster than the miles are ticking by. I have stopped wearing my heart rate monitor on interval day. Who needs the stress of another number glaring at you on the screen.

Once a week I look with trepidation at my schedule. I KNOW it's interval day. It comes once per week, in the middle of the week. It's the day that Jeff Galloway says will make me stronger. I have proven his point with my own body. I KNOW that it is true and yet I still curse it when the day arrives.

I am training for 4 races from October 18th-January 24th. Each race has a different distance, terrain and goal.

October 18th is the Komen Race for the Cure. An asphalt run with thousands of people, around the local mall. I plan to run this one as fast as I can. My goal is 25-27 minutes.

November 8th is the Mission in 10K. Around downtown Riverside, asphalt run. Mostly flat, some curves and hills. I plan to run this one in 50-57 minutes.

November 28th is the Turkey Trot back in my favorite terrain, Temecula wine country. I'm going to take on the vines 6 months after I first tried them. My goal is to beat my former all terrain time of 1 hour 10 minutes.

January 24th is the first diamond in the Triple Crown for 2010. The Carlsbad Half Marathon. 13.1 miles of coastal racing at it's finest. My first ever half marathon. My goal is to run between 2 hours flat and 2 hours 10 minutes.

Now, you may be wondering who Jeff is? Jeff Galloway is the guru of running. He teaches runners how to run. In his younger days he was fast. But, as a middle aged runner like myself the fastest half marathon he ever ran was at age 35 in 2 hours and 16 minutes. Jeff makes is sound logical to plan and pace and strengthen so that even an average runner like me can accomplish an underatking like a half marathon.

I've read what Jeff says, it makes sense to me. I've tested his strategies on my own body and I know it works. I am a results driven girl and Jeff's plans have given me instant results. I love immediate gratification.

Back to the whole idea of intervals. Intervals are when you run a specified distance at sprinting pace (for me this is 7.5-8.0 mph currently) and then you run half of that distance at a comfortable fast paced walk (4.2 mph for me) in order to drop your heart rate. Your heart rate should be at a comfortable rate before you begin to run again.

Now, when I first saw that Jeff was wanting me to run 16 quarter mile intervals I nearly passed out at the thought. Seriously, Jeff. 4 intervals is painful enough and now that I've increased my race distance goals I have to think like an endurance runner. I'm not sure I can do this. Interval days take longer to run the same distance that I can run in a tempo run comfortably. What is the purpose of pushing outside my comfort zone to ultimately run slower than I can currently run? Well, sprints trigger your fast twitch fibers in your muscles, that most endurance distance runners rarely tap because they are busy pacing themselves for the long haul. But, doing weekly speedwork will show immediate results in your pace time. I know this is true because I've seen it occur. Immediately following my two days off from my interval run I see that the next tempo run I am able to increase my tempo speed by .2-.3 mph. Not much you say, but in the course of 6 miles and 6 months I have managed to shave a big chunk of time off my races. And shaving time off my runs is important to me because quite frankly I still don't enjoy running for longer than one hour and my motto is "the faster you run, the faster you're done".

I've had to take my own goals into account and had to create my own spreadsheet that I believe encompasses the spirit of Jeff's philosophy. You can find that spreadsheet below.



Today after my second time doing 16 sets of intervals in 2 weeks I did see results. I didn't start cursing Jeff until the 10th set and I for the first 8 sets I felt like I "could" increase my speed if I wanted to and that 7.5 mph was actually comfortable and not painful. By the 16th interval I was indeed thinking Jeff was a crazy guy. And, then shockingly 15 minutes later I actually felt like I could get back on the treadmill and run at least another 3 miles (tempo paced of course).

I am told by an awesome friend, Phil...that this is the phenomena described by ABC's Wide World of Sports as "The thrill of victory" which is infinately better than "The agony of defeat". I agree.