Ok, so this was an exciting training day for the Mrs. Her first assignment was to run four intervals, four times.
RUN 2:00 @ 13:30
Walk 1:00 @ 16:00
RUN 2:00 @ 13:30
Walk 0:45 @ 16:00
RUN 2:00 @ 13:30
Walk 0:30 @ 1600
This was the first time I saw how you could program the Garmin to map to this type of training and “coach” you virtually while you run.
Okay, so when you try something new, if you’re like me, only some things go as planned on the first try. She spent most of last night configuring both our watches with the training plan, and when we went out, she showed me how to trigger it instead of the default 30:30 runs. We synced our watches, counted down, and then were off with the pup in tow.
About a mile in or a bit after the first set, her watch did not track the intervals as it should have. She messed hers up by showing me how to do the watch interval thing. So we went a bit more, but since she was very focused on collecting good data, she stopped short and committed to running later in the day. The pup made no complaints; she was going to get two runs in the same day.
So, a few hours passed, and we went out again. This time, the technology worked the way it was intended. A couple of observations: It was difficult for both the Mrs. and I to “run” at a pace of 13:30. We spent more time in the 12ish range. Walking was a bit easier to maintain, but even so, we tended to walk faster than the target.
Another observation was how easy this felt on step one, but on her last couple of intervals, Mrs.’s breathing was noticeably more pronounced and labored. From my point of view, it was as if the coach gave her a very precise prescription that would help her push herself harder than she expected. Granted, simply running for two minutes straight was a difficult change, but she powered through and followed the coach’s advice.
Something else of note for me was that I connected my headphones to the watch, and with the intervals, the voice prompts were helpful to know how close to pace we were and the times. With a 30:30 the prompts are annoying, but with this format, they were very helpful.
We ended up running almost two and a half miles in the middle of the day with the pup. All is well.