The best type of interval training, according to me!

My wife, who is a tennis coach, has a running track session for her students once or twice a week. I joined her session a few days ago. These days I’m so arrogant about my running that I never run with anyone because usually it’s outside of my running routine. I wouldn’t even do a mile trial against one of my four kids or my wife’s students. Because why would I, if it doesn’t help me run future marathons faster?

But I made an exception last week. I usually do intervals on Tuesdays and a tempo run on Thursdays. These are my two hard sessions. I did do my intervals on Tuesday last week (5x mile repeats with a 1.30-minute rest) and instead of doing a tempo run on Thursday I joined my wife’s running session. She does 400m intervals with her students.

And I loved it! It was going back to my roots! About two years ago, in the initial months of the pandemic, I started doing intervals. It was 10 by 400 meters with a one-minute rest or six by 800 meters with a 2-minute rest. I wasn’t at all training for a marathon then. I was just starting to discover the magic of interval training. It helped to lose weight and, eventually, it would help me prepare for my first sub-three-hour marathon.

These days I barely ever do short intervals, like 400 or 800 hundred meters. It’s always kilometer or mile repeats and sometimes two-mile repeats.

So last week I did 12x 400-meter intervals with one-minute rest. One kid in my wife’s group was ahead of me but the rest were…