How To Handle Intervals.

[[old] Sir Pirate]

I have started doing intervals recently. I have never been a lover of these as I have found them very hard previously.<br><br>One of the sessions I have been doing is 3x1250m with 3:00 rest (at 2k+2.5). Before, I would struggle to do this session as I found that once I had completed the first interval I would cease up in my legs. What I do now is to take a 2 minute rest then paddle the last minute to get my legs working again before the start of the next interval. I now do this to all interval sessions that I do, like if it is 6x500m with 1:30 rest I will paddle the last 30secs.<br><br>The one thing I don’t like about doing this is that it gives me a “flying start” to each interval (apart from the 1st). At the start of an interval I will cross the line at around 2:20 pace so it is not much of an advantage.<br><br>How do some of you others handle you interval sessions?<br>What is the longest interval session you will do i.e. Like 3x5000m etc<br><br>Sir Pirate

[[old] Cran]

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'><span class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></span> </td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->How do some of you others handle you interval sessions?<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><br>I usually do active recovery and a flying start, so I start a few secs before the actual start and take 2 strokes run up... so that the 3rd stroke (1st stroke of the interval) is on the target split. Obviously the 1st interval doesn't get this, but you can just do a few faster strokes at the start of the 1st interval to get the average on target.<br><br>As long as you do the same every time it doesn't matter as you are only comparing it with your own previous sessions.<br><br>I hate intervals! longer ones like 3x5k are ok, but the shorter ones like 10x500 are just bad <br><br><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'><span class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></span> </td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->What is the longest interval session you will do i.e. Like 3x5000m etc<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><br>weekday lunchtimes I usually do 2x30 mins with a 5 min break, but thats only because my training partner only gets time to do 30 mins at lunch so I do 30 mins on my own first. They can be anything from 20spm steady state to 32spm fast depending how we feel on the day.

[[old] Ash]

My favourite interval session of all time is 10 x 1500m with 1 minutes inactive rest, and i need every second of the rest!!! I find 10k pace is a good indicator of potential for this session, last time i tried it was 10k - 0.8<br><br>Come to think of it i haven't done this for a while..... Just added to this weeks training program in place of the 4 X 10 minutes. Should be fun

[[old] phowd]

My favorite interval set right now is a ladder of .5K, 1K, 1.5, 2, 2, 1.5, 1, .5 with active rest between of 1 minute per .5K erged. That is 10K of interval training.<br><br>My favorite variant is to descend the average 500 split on the way up (average split for each distance gets faster), reset that with the second 2K, then descend the average split on the way down (with the 2nd 2K split faster than the first 500 from the beginning and so on.) It provides a nice exercise in controlling your pace. The second 1.5K seems to always be the hardest to get through.