COMMUNITY: Workout with a purpose

Editor's note: Jason Clark of Iowa City is a group exercise instructor at North Dodge Athletic Club and a participant in Eastern Iowa runs, duathlons and triathlons.

By Jason Clark, community contributor

It's was a long, cold winter.

I'm finally getting back outside without having to put on five layers of clothing, spending 10 minutes looking for a hat that is probably in one of my children's lockers at school and then wondering if it is cold enough to put on yet another layer.

The ease of working out in the summer is unparalleled. However, the one thing that doesn't change from winter to summer is the amount of time (or lack thereof) that I have to work out.

So, how do you adequately prepare to compete in three events when you are trying to find an hour here or an hour there to train?

There are two schools of thought here. One way to prepare is to focus on the run because it is the most aerobically challenging and the improvements made running will translate into cycling and swimming fitness. The other is to focus on the swim and bike because you can walk the run portion if you have to but once you are in the water, you either swim or you don't compete.

Time crunched athletes find it is important to train with a purpose. Although there is utility in running just for the sake of running (running is good mental health medicine), running with a purpose in mind will help you improve your performance quicker. This also is true for swimming and cycling.

Two of the best ways to improve your running fitness is to run hill repeats and intervals. Although I am going to focus on running, these workouts can be adapted to the other two disciplines (with the obvious exception being the difficulty of swimming hills).

Hill repeats are just what the name implies - running up and down a hill repeatedly. There are a number of different hill repeat drills you can choose. Traditionally, you pick a long hill and run to the top. After reaching the top, turn around and either walk or run slowly down the hill to recover. Repeat the process 5-10 times.

A drill my high school cross country coach liked was for us to start at the top of the hill, run gently down and then sprint for 100 yards at the bottom. We would then turn around, jog to the bottom of the hill and bound up to the top. We would often repeat this drill 10 times before running back to campus.

The purpose of hill repeats is to increase your strength and your body's maximum oxygen consumption capacity.

Intervals usually are everyone's least favorite workout, but they pack a lot of punch into a relatively short amount of time. They are about pushing yourself to run fast and then giving yourself a recovery period to maximize your effort in the next interval.

An easy interval workout will include a warm up of 10 to 20 minutes and then 6 to 8 intervals of increasing effort. For example, run for 30 seconds at 70 percent maximum effort and then recover by running easy for 2 minutes. The next interval will be a 30 second run at 75 percent effort followed by a recovery period and so on until you reach 100 percent effort.

Make sure you use the full recovery period. As you get fitter, you can add a set of descending intervals as well. Following your workout, cool down with another 10 to 20 minute run and a good stretch.

Working out with a purpose will help you maximize your time when time is at a premium.

One of the best ways to incorporate new workouts into your routine is to join a triathlon club. There are several around Eastern Iowa, including Midwest Xtreme in Cedar Rapids and Iowa HEAT in Iowa City.