Once you've taught your body to run for an hour or

more then your aerobic ability should be capable of continuing that for the longer distances you wish to do albeit needing some fuel to replenish the glycogen stored in your muscles which is depleted between 45 mins and 1hr 15 into a run. But if you wish to run quicker then you have to do just that but my advice would be fartleks rather than intervals. Intervals tend to be regimented on a certain target heart rate and will be precise amounts of time so for example heart rate level 5 (aerobic capacity) for 3 mins with 90 second recoveries repeated five times. With tartleks you would go out for your usual run but then throw in a two minute increase followed by as long a rest as you felt you needed. Eventually you'd need to increase the length of the increase, decease the rest and increase the quantity of efforts and eventually go on to regular interval sessions. But what you want to avoid is knackering yourself inside the first mile as you did tonight. All exercise whether plodding or even walking is good so don't be hard on yourself but to go faster you need to get the body to experience it. Also higher exertion tends to increase the amount of time after exercise that calories continue to be burnt at a faster pace therefore we tend to lose weight. Lost weight = increase pace. I had the same dilemma when I trained for an Ironman. I felt I needed to put the long days in and neglected the high intensities but in retrospect I would've retained them. It didn't stop me doing the Ironman but it made me slower at shorter distances after the event even though I was arguably at my fittest ever. Finally (and forgive my ramblings but I'm passionate about what exercise has done for me) I take my hat off to you and I don't mean to sound patronising because it's not intended but to get yourself doing what you're doing with the targets you've got is superb. Stick at it my friend and increase your intensity each time you run and you'll soon notice a marked difference. All the best.

Posted By: Chopper, Sep 6, 21:13:03