This is day three of my new HIIT workout program and I really like it. Today, while I was on the trail, I had three observations about this new workout or HIITservations, if you will. 🙂

1, I am my own biggest cheerleader. During the 30 second run-as-hard-as-I-can intervals, I find myself coaching Me. It’s like I’m standing on the sidelines watching myself almost winning a race and knowing if I can cheer loud enough I will make it. Sometimes, I imagine I’m a secret agent and bad Russian guys are after me  but mostly, I put myself in race mode. Go, Lauri, go! 🙂

2. I’m sore differently. I think most people get sore when they start training, especially if it’s a different program than before. With this plan, I feel it most in my inner thighs and where I sit. Ladies, this is NOT a bad thing. 🙂 I drink 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar in a bottle of water as soon as I get back to my car and I’m walking around stretching and cooling down. I found out, when I was learning the kettlebell swing, that this combo is really effective at fighting DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness).

3. I’m going faster than I thought. Today when I did my first run interval, I thought, “Holy moly, this is strange”, Because I’m sore differently, I feel like I’m running slower and having to push harder. Or maybe, because I thought I was running slower, I pushed harder. I don’t know which it is but the truth of the matter is, I arrived at the half approximately 30 seconds faster than on Wednesday. I meant to start the Runkeeper today to keep track of that but only remembered it after the second set. I’ll need to remember at the beginning from now on.

In any case, I really love this workout. I’m currently doing 8 sets of 30 second run intervals followed by 1:30 brisk walk intervals to catch my breath. As I progress, I’ll modify these times.

If you haven’t done HIIT before, I encourage you to give it a try. It seems to be a really effective workout and takes only about 30 minutes as I’m doing it now. Go, you, go! 🙂