Ever since I started participating in 10K clinics and up, speed training has been a part of the training regime. Using the whole Running Room “house” analogy, getting the cardiovascular and breathing down is part of building a good foundation. Then you build the walls of the house via hill training–which is where you gain strength. The roof of the house comes on at the end with speed training.

For the longest time, I’ve dreaded the speed training phase. My first experience with speed training back at the end of 2007 was rough. I missed the previous day’s talk on how to do it correctly, so on the day of I just went all out and blasted as fast as I could up the 400m road. Oh man, what a mistake that was. I ran out of gas part of the way up and I was unable to recover properly after that. That has coloured my view of speed training ever since. If you asked me about speed training, I would always have the same reply: “I hate it!” Inevitably, that would be followed with “I much prefer hill training to speed training. At least you’re going somewhere. With speed training I just feel like vomiting.” No kidding. I should have realized that I was just doing it wrong.

I full realize now that my mistake was that I was just going too fast for my purposes. I have to go at a speed that I can maintain the whole way through. Say, my tempo pace is a very modest 7:30/km. That means my speed training pace should be about 40 seconds less. Going any faster is just ridiculous. Why the heck didn’t I pay attention to that before?

So, this epiphany has only come very recently. A week or two ago, my coaches were saying that this week’s speed training session was going to be 4 repetitions of 1.6K at speed training pace, with 400m walk breaks in between. All I could think was: “Damn, that sounds far!” I was used to running 400m lengths; running four times that distance sounded insane. Well, I thought that if I had to do it I was going to follow the book as much as possible. I tried to keep it at a 6:45/km pace. It was slower than the rest of the group, but it was correct for my abilities. To my amazement, 1.6K came and went without issue. By the end of one set, I was fatigued, but not grossly so. The 400m walk was enough recovery time for me to be ready for the next set. From what I could tell, I was actually running somewhere between 6:00-6:30. By the third I slowed down a little just because I continued to push myself. My breathing was a bit hard, but not to the point where I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. For the last set, the coach joined me (because everyone else was done). I was tired but I found something within me to push harder. I finished off strongly. I was proud of myself.

Heading back to the store, I couldn’t help but feel that something clicked. I didn’t feel like puking at all. I was feeling awesome and fresh. This was in total contrast to my previous images of speed training. I am in shock. It’s kind of too bad that this was my last speed training session for this clinic, but all the same I know that next time one such phase rolls around I’ll be prepared. I can do this!