Four minute k - Part 2

Saturday, 6 December 2025

The first week of training was as per the chatGPT training program and asked for two interval sessions. These filled me with dread but also made me wonder where I would do them.  Our local little athletics track is handy but also definitely not 400m around and often used by actual athletes (all be them little ones).   The thought of running around a random oval somewhere with cricket or any other sport going on also sent shivers down my spine.

In the end I decided I'd brave the little athletics track but when I got up there it was being used by a few people and I was too intimidated I just drove down to Kingston Beach and ran laps of a little bush path circuit at Kingston Beach.  

The 2nd session was 3 x 8minute intervals which I decided I'd do on the pipeline track. In hindsight it was a weird (and hard) session and I ditched the chatGPT training plan completely after that and trawlled around the internet until I found a runners magazine article about how to train for a 1km race. From that I set myself a 12 week program featuring 2 interval sessions a week, one of 400s and 1 of 200s,  plus 1 tempo session session and two nicer runs up to 50 minutes. 

During week 2 I decided I needed to face the music and actually do a time trial for 1k just to see how far off it I was (and if it was even going to be feasible). As my only previous test had been 500m on the Tan track in Melbourne some months earlier, which was no-where near the 2 minutes it needed to be, I was quite concerned the gap between where I was, and where I needed to be would be too great. Avoiding it wasn't going to help either so just  I had to do it.  I was hoping for somewhere around 4.30-4:40, and fearing I'd be closer to 5minutes, so it was with great delight that it turned out to be just a very unpleasant 4:18 - proving it should be absolutely completely doable if I kept at it.