I am also in the group that has changed their R/W interval as the miles start to pile on:
Still chugging along at training. Can't remember now if it was here or Princess or Tink but somewhere someone mentioned how they shortened their R/W intervals to 90/30 and it made a world of difference in their performance and actually made their overall times faster. Now, I thought that logically, I'd end up with my times slowing down if I was running 90/30 vs 3/1 like I was doing before. My initial thought was that it seems like you'd be doing less running, but if you think about it- the amount of time you spend running is the same per four minute group. All that changes is how often you take your walk break. Before, I had noticed that I literally could not maintain 4/1 (I was trying to increase my R/W time and that's what lead me to post in the first place) for an entire long run. At that time, my long run was 8 miles. So that person or persons chimed in that it helped them and maybe to give it a try.
So I tried it.
And the results?
this past Tuesday or Wednesday I ran 4.2 miles in 45 minutes. That's a 10:42 pace! My typical pace for a night time short run was about 11:30 or 12!!
And saturday, I upped my miles. Went from 8miles long run to 10 miles. I did 10 miles in 1:45 (or :46, can't remember which) which is about 10:30 pacing!!
I was over the moon thrilled! My long run pacing for Saturday or Sunday mornings was typically in the neighborhood of 13 min/mi before I switched to 90/30.
For comparison, my long run the previous saturday was 8 miles in the same exact time frame. I literally told myself that I would run for time using this new technique and see just how far I got- knowing that I should at least make 8 miles. Well surprise, surprise! I not only made 8 miles in that time, I made 10. Now, around mile 4-6 I still had the mental "*** are you doing to me?" moment, but using this new interval did not lead me to having to get to 1.5 miles before my body felt 'broken in' and ready to run. It literally took me maybe 10 minutes or so. BIG difference. Also, I know that most running plans say you should only up your distance by 10% (ie about a mile) on long runs; so this was not in keeping with my training plan in that sense, but I did not increase my time spent running so it's kind of a trade off.
So I'm going to stick with this interval for now, and try it again during next weekend's long ru to see what my results are, but initial results are very pleasing.
****apologies to those who are on all three race threads- you will be seeing this post more than once, SORRY*****