Interval running

As of late, I have started to enjoy my distance runs less and less. I’ve never really considering running to be one of my favourite exercises anyway (especially when compared to cycling and swimming), but now I’ve started to dread the idea of going for a run five or six days per week. Until today, I’ve always tried to gradually increase either my distance or my speed. For instance, over the course of the past 18 months, I progressed from barely being able to run 2km at 6 km/h to my current of between 13-16km at 13 km/h. My method of increasing speed and/or distance was continuous, meaning that I would run at the same pace for the duration of the run.

Over the past couple weeks, however, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research regarding interval running. It is a training method where one runs at incredibly high intensity for a short burst, and then slows to a speed under his or her normal pace for the rest of the interval. There have been many studies attempting to provide empirical evidence (as well as many success stories providing anecdotal evidence) supporting the notion that interval running burns fat more quickly than does continuous running. Though one may burner fewer calories by interval training, the calories from fat may be utilised before calories from another source. Thus my rationale for trying this new method–I want to lower my body fat percentage. I believe that my weight (~68-70kg [~150-155 lbs] at any given time) is healthy for my height (177cm [~5’10”]), but that my body fat percentage (currently around 16.5%) is a little high. I’ve never been able to successfully keep my body fat percentage under 15.5% for any substantial length of time, and thought that maybe this type of training would help.

To better understand the concept of interval training, here’s how I went about my run today:

As you can see, my intervals were 5 minutes apiece with 90-second high-intensity bursts followed by 3.5 minute “rest” periods (which were not exactly restful, but were slower than my typical continuous training pace). I did a total of eleven intervals, which equates to 16’30” @ 16 km/h (~6.5 mph) and 38’30” @ 10.5 km/h (~6.5 mph). Combined with my 5-minute warm-up and 5-minute cool-down, that was 65 minutes of training. I’m interested in seeing how this type of training affects my body fat percentage over the upcoming weeks. Instead of doing interval training each day, I’m going to do 2 or 3 days of interval, and the remainder of days (totalling 5 per week) of continuous pace. I’ll certainly post my findings in a few weeks.

Cheers,
Zach