Making the most of your time

I've noticed that more often than not, I can get in workouts, but then I'll hit stretches every so often that I'll be super busy and I won't be able to do all the workouts that I want, or even some of the workouts.  So what is one to do when you're pressed for time but you still need to get in workouts?

Well the biggest thing that I've found is that I still need to do a warmup, some semblence of a cooldown and I still like to get my stretching in.  Well the quick answer is you go hard for whatever time you do have.  In a lot of peoples case they want to get faster so here's what you can do.

  If you've only got 20 minutes which is actually unbelievably short, you run short sprints.  These are good because they pretty much get your body to recruit everything and have yourself firing on all cylinders for a short period of time.  It's great for building up distance and strength, while decreasing chances of injury.

If you have 30 minutes you can still run sprints, but these are more like intervals that you can do for a minute.  This is a good time to work on your turnover of your cadence because if you can turn it over quickly, you can slowly increase the distance each stride takes.  This is good because you don't move your feet anymore but you're covering more distance.  In addition it helps to give you good form when you start getting tired if you've practiced at a greater tempo.

If you're short for time, like I said the best way will be to run hard for short periods of time and 45 minutes isn't any difference.  You can run half mile repeats, alternating between running faster than a 5k pace and then running for a little bit of a cooldown.

Now if you have an hour, you're not really pressed for time anymore, but this is a good time to do a long temp run that's a little bit slower than a 5k race pace.  This will help you build up the body's ability to continue at a pace even when you start getting tired because you've run at that pace before and for a somewhat long time.  When you finally do get tired, you'll have the power to push through because you've done it before and you'll know how it feels

So there you have it, doesn't matter how little time you have, you can always squeeze in a quick workout, just run quickly.

~Cheers