I finished my first race of the season on Saturday; the Fountain Lake Five (the actual distance is more like 5.1 miles) here in Albert Lea, Minnesota. My time: 31:19. My place: 3rd overall and 1st in my age division (which was actually 2nd in my age division because the overall winner was my age). Last year I ran 31:05, but I’d done many more hard workouts by then.
For a race as short as five miles I really can see the importance of getting in speed work and ample anaerobic threshold (AT) workouts. I’m doing more of those now with the high school track team. We did three 1-mile repeats yesterday at about 6:20 pace, with close to 1:00 rest between each (jogging rest). After a decent base, I find AT work really helps to bring times down, especially when mixed with workouts that stress efficiency. And we haven’t done anything that I’d put into the hard “interval” category yet.
One of the most significant differences between hard intervals and threshold work is that hard intervals require plenty of rest. The priority is efficiency and coordination, with the overall development of aerobic fitness playing second fiddle for the day.