I was lucky enough to meet Jeff Galloway at a book signing and explained my problems in finding the right intervals for me. He could not have been more supportive about using short intervals. He told me that he and his wife train at 1/1 and race at 30 sec/30 sec.
He suggested that I try starting there for a few months and throw in some races to see how it was working. He also said to take advantage of the course terrain when you are racing. Don't get so fixated on your interval that you are struggling to maintain a run interval up a long hill or waste a good down hill by going to a walk when continuing to run a little longer could help your momentum.
I was worried about being able to start and stop in such short stretches, but I quickly got the hang of gliding in and out pretty effortlessly. I feel that my new faster pace with these short intervals is less tiring than my old struggles to go longer.
I turned 50 on Christmas Eve 2010. I trained and raced all of 2011 using the 1/1 and 30/30s. I ran 5ks, 4 milers, 10ks, a 10 miler, a 15k and a couple of halfs and shattered all of my PRs from my 40s. As a matter of fact not only did each race that year get faster than the same distance race earlier that year -even when I was racing in the summer heat, but I felt stronger after my races than ever before! Each success made me stronger in my resolve to keep going with these short intervals.
What I didn't mention in my 1st post was that I have had 8 knee operations - 4 on each knee. Using these intervals I can now race without pain and not have lingering pain for days after races. On top of all that I am faster - pretty cool!
The ability to run without pain and to feel good at the end of races is what pushed me to sign up for my first full. When I finished my 2nd half of 2011 in 2:48 and felt fantastic I KNEW without a doubt I had found the right intervals for me.
Coach Charles is frequently quoted on this board about all of us being an "experiment of one". Do your experiment, but make sure you give your intervals a really good test before switching up.
Learn from my mistakes - For me, the ever increasing intervals that many plans give you just don't work for my body - they only made things worse physically and I was getting drained emotionally from feelings of failure.
Having a respected authority like Jeff "give me permission" not to increase my intervals helped me emotionally get over the idea that short intervals weren't good enough.
I don't think that without the solid months (not days or even weeks) from my beginning 1/1 and 30/30 and sticking to them I would have hit my 2:48 half.
You can do this!!!
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