Olympic Hopeful Sarah Haskins Shares Her Running Workout
Friday, May 23, 2008 at 1:35PM 
Member of USAT Trade Team and Olympic hopeful Sarah Haskins uses TrainingPeaks to track her progress as a professional triathlete. From her home base in Colorado Springs, she trains both at the Olympic Training Center and outdoors on the mountain trails, where she enjoys the scenery and the advantages that training at altitude can bring. On one of her recent runs, she ran to Bear Creek from the Monument Trail, a route that provides plenty of hills for her to climb. To view the workout data for this run recorded on her Garmin training device and uploaded to her TrainingPeaks account, click here.
Sarah's run was designed to build her strength on the hills for future races, as described in her workout goals: "Good, challenging hill course; goal is to attack the first part of each climb then fall into a race pace; flats will be 7:00ish pace; work the downhills at <5:45 pace." She maintained her target pace for most of the run, but struggled a bit towards the end of the ten-mile route: "Towards the end of the run, harder to "attack" each climb....probably more like a race pace or just below race pace towards end; maintained a 7 min pace on the flats and 6min pace on the downhills."
Although her average pace was 7:28 minutes per mile, her Normalized Graded Pace (NGP) as calculated by WKO+ software was actually 6:54 minutes per mile. This means that because of the additional challenge caused by the hilly terrain, the effort that Sarah put in to maintain the 7:28 min/mile average pace on the Monument Trail route was equivalent to the effort she would have to maintain to run 6:54 minute miles on a flat course. Her running Training Stress Score (rTSS) for the workout was almost exactly 100 points, which means that the stress her body experienced during this 10 mile workout is equivalent to the stress she would experience if she ran at the fastest rate she could maintain for 10 kilometers. For additional analysis of this workout in WKO+ software, check out the screen shot below:
Duration: 1:13:22
Average heart rate: 167 bpm
Minimum heart rate: 73 bpm
Elevation gain: 2370 ft
Average Altitude: 6073 ft
Sarah continues to train hard and hopes to represent the United States in Beijing in August. She will also race at the World Championships in Vancouver on June 8th, and the New York City Triathlon on July 19th. For more information about Sarah Haskins, visit her website or check out the article about the USAT Trade Team in Triathlete Magazine.
Reader Comments (1)
Hey have you seen the new low impact running shoes that totally protect your joints? They increase stamina, endurance, and distance. Theya re a great trainging tool. Http://www.kangoonation.com. I got a pair and I love them. Nothing hurts anymore. Yahhhhh