Returning after an injury meant that speed workouts were out of the question for a few months. I resumed running last year in autumn with one easy run per week and increased the number of runs and distance gradually. Over the last few weeks, I’ve averaged four runs per week and 40–50 km of weekly distance. However, until last week, all of those kilometers were run at an easy pace to rebuild the base that took a hit during the injury break.
12x400m – testing the waters
The 12x400m workout from last week was a good assessment of my current training shape. I ran it last Tuesday at the Lia Manoliu track in Bucharest with the Adidas Runners crew, with 200m recovery between the speed intervals. Going into the workout, I had no real insights on what I could achieve during a speed session – it was a step into the unknown.
In the end, the workout went well and I was genuinely surprised by the pace. Almost all of the 400m intervals were done at a pace between 3:40–3:50 min/km, with the fastest at 3:41. This was well under my initial guess that I might hit a pace under 4:00 on intervals.
6x1km – stepping it up
Yesterday I was back on the same track with the Adidas Runners crew. This time the workout was more demanding: 6x1km intervals with two minutes of recovery. Since I used the manual lap function on the watch, I had to rely on the track markings – so for recovery I ran 400m at 4:50–5:00 min/km to cover the distance in roughly two minutes while keeping the pace from dropping too much.
The speed intervals were again faster than expected. The fastest was 3:51 min/km, the slowest 4:00 min/km, with the average across intervals coming in at 3:56 min/km.
What’s next
The endurance isn’t back to pre-injury levels yet, but it’s getting closer with every training week. There’s still work to do both on and off the track, but those first two speed workouts from the training block for spring races look promising. For the next period, I’ll focus on increasing the long runs to build endurance alongside the speed work.
