Mystery Intervals

In a mystery interval workout, you're given a card with start and finish times for one or two intervals. Everyone else in your group gets their own card with different interval assignments. The group starts their watches simultaneously and starts running, and each individual calls out the start and stop times for their assigned intervals. Since you don't know what's on everyone else's cards, you have no idea how long the intervals or recovery periods are, or even how many you're doing - the workout becomes a bit of a guessing game, with some incentive to keep the intensity under control. It's a nice way to break up the usual routine, especially with threshold sessions that require a lot of "on" time.

We did mystery intervals at Pineland today in the late afternoon rain. The trails were in their usual immaculate condition, albeit a bit soggy - it won't take much snow before we're skiing, although it's a bit early for us to start hoping. We ran the flats and downhills and moosehoofed the uphills, using poles - the rolling terrain on Oak Hill was perfect for a good threshold workout, and we were solidly worn out by the end. People are feeling the volume of the last few days, particularly Tuesday's 4 hour rollerski/run - the rest of this week will be a bit of a grind, but things will get somewhat easier soon enough (at least from a volume standpoint). In any case, another good workout in the books.