Workouts: Pandora and The Devil

First of: If anyone is in or around Lake Forest this Saturday, Feb. 13, come to Jessi Stensland's MovementU Clinic held at Core Performance. I'll be there ALL day and am super excited. More info at www.movementu.com.

On to my post... working out...

I really enjoy training with other people, but given my ridiculous schedule I'm often forced to train solo. (Yes, the ongoing joke is fairly accurate: I have a gagillion jobs, and just added on another. More on that soon... very excited.) Good thing is, I'm pretty self-motivated and self-disciplined, so I work hard even if no one's watching.

I thought I'd share a couple "fun" workouts I like to do that help the time fly by:

PANDORA-INTERVAL TRAINER SESSION

Everyone loves Pandora, duh! You get a whole radio station based on the genre you want to hear, how cool is that?! Well it's perfect for a bike trainer session alone in your room. Get your favorite upbeat station going, then whenever the song changes, you change what you're doing on the bike... sort of like a fartlek bike workout where you can switch up lots of variables: intensity, big gear/small gear, cadence, power, single-leg drill, etc. Songs are roughly ~3 minutes long, which is good for a lot of stuff, but sometimes I'll do a double or triple whammy: big gear "climb" for 2+ songs.

I have a Lady Gaga station I'm currently hooked on for this workout. However, my neighbors are probably questioning my sanity.... crazy music blasting from open windows when it's freezing and dark outside. Hm. Also, watch out for classic rock stations... lots of looooong psychedelic instrumental solos. That's when they were all on drugs back then haha.

THE DEVIL'S RUN

Mmm mmm good. I dubbed this track workout the "Devil Run" yesterday because there are lots of 6's involved. Oh, the crazy things that go through my head during workouts.

Here it is.... can be done on a track or on a one-mile stretch of land.

- 10 min warmup
- 6 x 1-mile (1600), on 2-3 min rest
- Negative splitting each mile
- Goal: keep each mile in the 6-min-per-mile-pace range (6:00-6:59)... unless you're fast and can do it in the 5-min or faster range, but then it's no longer the Devil Run haha.
- 10-15 min cooldown
- Total time: 60-something minutes (more if longer rest intervals or longer WU/CD)

See the theme of 6's? I swear I'm not promoting the devil :)

I did this workout yesterday for the first time since way back pre-Clearwater '09, and I was happy with the outcome. Faster than I did it last year. Splits: 6:36, 6:25, 6:20, 6:13, 6:13, 6:11.

The funny thing... it felt easier with each mile, like I was giving the same (hard) effort but a slightly faster pace resulted. However, after mile 6, I was done; a mile 7 would not have been easier haha.

So those are a couple of my fav workouts!

Have fun!