I know sprinting is fabulous for weight loss but I have been avoiding running sprints since I injured my hip about a month ago because everytime I attempted running fast the hip pain seemed to come back. I've been pain-free for a couple weeks now... so this morning I decided it was time to change things up a bit. Devin's little voice inside my head was saying... if you want to lose weight you need to run faster NOT longer... I know he's right... but I love the feeling of long distance runs. Lately, I've been running about 3/4 of kilometer (3-4 minutes) and then walking 1 minute... and doing this cycle for 5kms or for longer runs (up to 10kms) I've been running 10 minutes and walking 1 minute to recover and then going for another 10 minutes again etc.

Today... I decided to sprint 1 minute flat out then walk 1 minute to recover... I did this for 35 minutes.

When I first started running last year I had one speed... slow! But as I lost weight and my running endurance increased... I soon realized I definitely had the ability to run at different speeds and this helped to change up my workout but still enjoy a runner's high.

The ladies I'm running intervals with on Saturday mornings are all new to running... so the intervals are slow compared to my regular running pace. But this morning... I pushed it even beyond my normal pace... I managed to run about 40 steps further then we do on Saturdays in 1 minute!!! That is CRAZY... I was cranking it to run as far as I could in 1 minute.

This is how I gauge if I'm running hard enough on interval training... if the last 20 seconds of the 1 minute sprint my legs think they can't take another step and I have to talk myself through making it to the end of the running interval... then I know I'm working hard enough.

Running sprints is not supposed to be easy... if you find running intervals for 1 minute is easy then you need to increase your speed until it isn't.