Time Chaser
- A great session for hitting a range of speeds
- Helps develop keen pacing
- Works well on the running track, on the road and in parks
Time Chaser is an excellent way to perfect your pacing while challenging yourself. You'll work progressively harder throughout the session and hit a wide range of speeds and intensities.
Equipment
You'll need a stopwatch to keep track of your efforts.
The Session
Find a section of road, grass or track 400m–800m in length.
Jog the lap at a nice easy pace and record your time.
Take a one-minute recovery and then run another lap, but this time five to ten seconds faster than your initial jogging effort.
After another minute's recovery run another lap, again five to ten seconds faster than your previous time.
Continue in a like manner, reducing your goal time by five to ten seconds with each rep, until you miss your target.
Variations
Extra Volume
If the session ends up feeling a bit short then a good trick is to alternate the time-chasing laps with jogging laps. This also provides opportunity for a little more recovery.
Going Short
The session can work well for shorter distances, but in this case it's best to reduce each rep by a smaller increment (1–2 seconds) otherwise you will max-out fairly quickly and will end up completing too few reps.
Real World Example
A single runner has decided to perform the session on a running track. Each rep will be 400m (one lap of the running track), and she will increase her speed for each subsequent rep so that it is run ten seconds faster than the previous.
The runner completes her first lap in two minutes.
She aims to run her second lap in 1:50; she runs a touch too fast and finishes in 1:47.
Her third lap is completed in 1:41 (goal 1:40).
The fourth lap is completed in 1:30 (goal 1:30).
The fifth lap is completed in 1:22 (goal 1:20). She feels that lap was quite challenging, but decides to try one more rep.
Her sixth lap is completed in 1:16, despite trying her hardest to hit 1:10. So she ends the session.
- The session is best performed on a loop so you can start, finish and rest at the same point.
- Start more slowly than you think you need to. Otherwise you won't be able to increase pace for subsequent reps and the session will be unduly short.
- Don't over exert yourself by running too hard to chase a time. Part of the challenge of this session is pacing and planning and it's natural that you'll over or under estimate sometimes. So if you get things wrong then simply readjust.
- This session includes some fairly speedy running so it's important to warm up before and to cool down afterwards.