How to use your running watch for interval training
Intervals can be an integral part of your training depending on what it is you’re training for. One problem for us statistic loving runners, is that it can be hard to compare progress with them.
Why bother comparing?
We obviously can’t compare a continuous run with an interval session, and other than taking up one of your training runs each month with a test runs, which might not be right for you as an individual, it can be hard to see your progress.
By tracking interval sessions differently, we can see progress from one week or fortnight to the next. This gives up more opportunity to learn about what works for us as individuals and helps with keeping motivation high.
What to track when running intervals
Ideally you need to know how long you’ve run for (time or distance depending on the plan and long term goal), your pace for that interval, the length of rest and pace of the rest if it’s an active recovery.
Once you have this you can draw parallels between one session and another.
How to track your intervals
This presumes you have a running watch and will vary entirely based on the watch you use, but here are a couple of ways.
Lap button – turn off the autolap feature on your watch, and instead use the lap button to log the start and end of each work and rest period. This means you can track all of it in 1 activity on your watch and makes life a lot easier.
“Workout” feature – Garmin watches have the option to pre-programme a workout through their app and send to certain watch models. This does all the separation or work and rest for you and you get really nerdy with the data in the app after your run. It isn’t very flexible though, so I tend not to use this option.
New activites – not all watches have a lap button feature, so to get the data we want you’ll have to start and stop a new activity for every work and rest. I won’t lie this is a bit of a chore to do. If you’re having to use this method, it might be worth having a stopwatch on as well and just time the rests instead of measuring the distance. It’s less effective in terms of tracking but the intervals themselves are just as good for you.
What watch?
I use a Garmin Forerunner 245 with the lap button as my method. Prior to that I had a Garmin 235 which was great, and before that a TomTom Runner which was good but didn’t have the lap feature and consequently wasn’t as flexible.
If you’re using intervals in your training and want to see how much faster you’re getting, or if you’re not progressing, then give these methods a go to let you see what’s going on.
Written by Kyle Brooks, Running Coach based in Norwich, Norfolk.
