In January and February, I was a Mountain Tactical Institute mini-study lab rate. The training program is described here, including results for group A and group B.
1/27/20 6-mile time trial 48:37
2/17/20 6-mile time trial 44:54
A few thoughts about completing the 3-week training program …
1. I am happy about my improvement
2. I think I overran my fitness in the 1/27 assessment as the 2-mile intervals were quite challenging.
3. Running in Wisconsin in January and February is rarely easy, but I lucked out with a decent stretch of weather, mostly ran on dry roads and only ran one training run on a treadmill
4. The 12-minute rest might have been the hardest part of this training planning. Running hard in 15-25 F makes it tough to rest outside and going inside increased my sweat, but was a chance to put on some new dry layers
5. I like a little more variety than running 2-mile intervals day 3x per week for 3 weeks
6. On Saturday 2/1 I did a high-intensity training competition (Ski Erg, single unders, burpees, squats and sit-ups) for a charity fundraiser. It was great fun, but soreness slowed me down in week 2.
7. All of my mile splits on 2/17 were faster than my fastest mile spit on 1/27
8. I negative split all miles on both assessments, but had a bigger gap in the 1/27 assessment (mostly because I started too slow)
9. It is nice to see results from focused interval training in just 3 weeks of training.
10. I don’t think my improvement is simply attributable to knowing the time I was trying to beat.
