Cruise Intervals (Read 894 times)

Talk to me about these. What are they used for? Are they similar to a tempo? When would one employ these?

They help raise your lactic threshold, which is probably the most important of all the systems (for lack of a better word) we use in long-distance races. I would say that they are similar to tempo, but slightly faster and broken into segments. You can use them in place of tempo runs or as a supplement virtually year around. At your mileage I'd say that 3 miles worth is about right. Here a couple calcuators where you can enter a race time and it will give you cruise interval paces plus a bunch of other stuff. Fwiw I use them or similar a lot and believe that they are a big difference maker. http://runworks.com/calculator.html http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/Running%20University/Article%201/mcmillanrunningcalculator.htm

These are a tool used for peaking. When is the race you are peaking for? I would assume it is a 5 or 10k for this type of interval. 6 or 8 weeks away from that race you would start any interval workouts you have planned. Of course this is from a woman that peaks quickly on any interval training and cannot sustain that peak for very long. I would not do cruise intervals year-round. Now striders are a different story....

I thought this article provided a nice explanation: http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/rununiv/training/training4.htm

Okay..thanks! I have been doing them occasionally and from the looks of what you guys have said I have been doing them correctly.. I have used McMillan's site to help give me an idea of pace doing most of my training.