Expanding the 1600 meter method

Expanding the 1600 meter method

Some Tips

At this point you may be thinking to yourself; “He’s talking about 1600’s again? Haven’t we had enough?”

But, alas, my friends I think there is still ground to be turned here and gems to found.

Why am I so enraptured with 1600 interval workouts?

First because, for me, they are effective in enabling me to  reach my specific goals.

Second, because they are simple and flexible.

I find that most training plans and methodologies tend to over complicate things.  Especially those plans in that running magazine we all know.  They seem like they are trying to cram in every type of training there is, hills, strides, fartleks, plyometrics…blah, blah, blah… Why so complicated?

For me it is simple.  Speed, Tempo Long.

Even programs like FIRST that are very similar to mine over complicate the speedwork.  They have ladders and 600’s and 1200’s and all kinds of complex mathematics around paces.

There is no need for that.  It’s really quite simple.  Speed, Tempo, Long.

My goals are very specific.  I want to run a qualifying marathon.  My 1600 based plan is the straightest line to my goal.

I don’t have time in my life to watch a video that explains a workout.  I just want to run.  I want to do the work necessary to reach my goal without having to break out a pace calculator and log book every day.

Simple and effective:  Speed, Tempo, Long.

Now that I’m older I also work in core and cross training, but that is the filler, the enabler for the Speed, Tempo, Long.

How do I take this basic workout and extend it?  How do I use the basic purpose of the 1600 to drive other workouts?  I start on the track because in order to learn the appropriate effort and pace you need to isolate.  The track allows you to isolate.  After 3 or 4 weeks you will be comfortable with the pace and effort level and you can take the workouts off the track.

First you have to understand the purpose of the workouts.  The speed 1600’s that I’m currently running at a pace about a minute faster than my goal marathon pace, are for establishing pace efficiency at threshold.  They force me to experience holding pace, form and mechanics steady at a fairly high intensity and effort level.

Because of the intensity they also work my leg strength, my discomfort tolerance and my ability to recover from a hard effort.  For me these efforts are essentially 7-8 minutes at a 5K pace or a little bit faster.

Once I know the purpose of the workout and what it is doing I can extend it.   I can take that workout into the woods with the dog, or out on the road.  I can do those same learned 7-8 minute hard-effort, clean pace intervals on natural hills and terrain and it becomes a great strength workout.  This is a good trade.

I prefer to do the tempo 1600’s, which I run at about 30 seconds faster than my goal marathon pace, in a controlled environment.  These are about form and pace, more the effort.  These need to be controlled so that you burn in the pace.  I will do these on the track if I can, but I can also do them on the treadmill.

Here’s how I do my tempo 1600’s on the treadmill when I’m traveling.

There are times on the road, or due to weather or circumstance that I have to resort to a treadmill to get the workout done.  The 1600 based interval workout is, in fact quite well suited to the treadmill.

On the treadmill you can set the pace and this, in some ways, simplifies the interval workout.  I will still warm up with a 10 minute ‘jog’.  This allows my muscles to get some blood flowing before I stress them with a hard effort.

You can combine the two methods.  I will sometimes do my warm up and cool down outside and do the interval portion of the workout on the treadmill.  I’ll try to stretch on warm muscles after my 10-minute warm up and before my interval set.

The other good thing about the 10 minute warm-up is that it will get your digestive processes unstuck in the morning and allow you to take care of that before the interval portion of the workout.  I find that with travel I’m usually up at 5:00AM to get these workouts in and mostly my body needs that first ten minutes to catch up, and wake up.

There are all different makes and models of treadmills in the hotels that I stay in.  Some of the treadmills have programmable interval workouts but you really don’t need those.  My relationship with these treadmills might only be one day long so I typically won’t invest in programming workouts into them.

You do need to know what your jog-recovery pace is and what your interval pace is before you start the workout.  For me I am currently using an 8:34 pace as my recovery jog which is 7 miles per hour on the treadmill and 7:13 pace for my tempo miles which is 8.3 miles per hour on the treadmill. I also know that a good brisk walk is 3.2 miles per hour.

I start the interval set by walking for a minute at 3.2, just to ease into it and warm up.  Then I push the increase speed arrow to 7.0 for another minute.  Then I push the increase speed button to 8.3 mph and hold that for 7 or 8 minutes depending how I’m feeling.

It’s not important to run exactly for 7:13 to get my mile.  Feel free to round up or down on your interval time to make the match easier.  The benefit is good either way.  The machine takes 10-15 seconds to speed up to interval pace, but it also takes 10-15 seconds to slow down to rest pace so it’s a wash and I don’t sweat it.

And, remember, I’m fudging the math by saying 1600 meters and a mile are the same – they really aren’t, a mile is 5-10 seconds longer than a 1600 – but it all comes out in the wash.

During the interval you relax into the effort and focus on pace and form.  As we have already discussed this tempo 1600 isn’t about effort specifically, it is about burning in pace and form over time.

When the treadmill clock hits the desired interval time, for me 7 or 8 minutes, I hit the slow down arrow button and drop the pace all the way down to a walking 3.2 mph pace.  On the track I wouldn’t do this but the treadmill is too digital in its recover and there’s no profit in over stressing your recovery.  It takes the machine a few seconds to spin down to walking pace and then I hold this until another minute is up.

When a walking minute is up I speed it up to my jog-recovery pace for the next minute, in my case 7.0 miles per hour and do another minute at this pace then transition into the next interval and keep doing this until I have completed the set.  Then I warm down for 10 minutes.

Round up or down on your times to make the math easy.  For me a cadence of walk one, jog one, interval eight is a nice round 10 minutes per set so I can never lose track of where I’m at in the workout.

The last piece of the puzzle is the incline.  I think this depends on how you feel and the equipment.  I may use a 1% incline for the workout or a .5% incline or if I’m really tired and jetlagged I may even use a 0% incline.

All machines are calibrated a little differently and may be maintained differently.  Some machines are just going to be harder to run on.  Don’t stress over it.  Make adjustments to elevation or pace or time so that you can get the workouts done without hurting yourself.

If you can do this then the treadmill interval workout is almost as good and being at the track.

In this way you can take my basic, simple program of 1600’s – Speed, Tempo, Long and expand it to cover all circumstances.

You might say something like, “but Chris, my target race has some hills in it, shouldn’t I do hills?”  Not necessarily.  What is a hill in a race?  It’s a hard effort followed by a recovery.  Intervals give you that. If it’s a really hilly course you can take your speed 1600’s out onto a hilly course and you will check both boxes.

For the final part of my training, the long run, I try to do them at 30 seconds to 1 minute slower than race pace.  The point of these long runs is time on my feet and being able to maintain a relaxed form over the distance and duration.

It up to you, but I don’t know why you would neurotically complicate things when you can keep them simple and get the same results.  But that’s me.