One-Hour Workout: Grace Norman's "No Watch" Track Session

Published October 13, 2021 02:17PM

This week’s one-hour workout comes from Grace Norman, who knows a thing or two about running fast on the track. Norman competed at the 2016 Paralympics in both the 400m (where she won the bronze medal in a time of 1:01.83) and the inaugural paratriathlon, winning gold in her division, the PTS5. She added to her medal haul at this year’s Tokyo Paralympics, bringing home the silver medal in her division. That’s a lot of hardware!

One element of Norman’s success is time on the track. This workout, which comes from her coach Greg Mueller, involves a main set of six 600 meters at race pace. In addition to helping build your endurance and speed, this set is great for helping to improve your biofeedback and pacing, as there’s one strict rule: you’re not allowed to look at your watch!

Norman said: “The objective of this workout is to develop a feel for race pace and hold it for 600 meters. If you’re wearing a watch, you shouldn’t be looking at it. Try to relax into your race pace and not worry about hitting certain times. This should feel fast and controlled, but a pace you can hold for your specific race distance.”

To make it really tri-specific, Norman likes to bike to the track for this workout and then does a one to two-mile warm-up. She’ll round out the warm-up with a 400m building to 95% effort. The main set involves six 600m repeats and you can either not wear a watch at all and have a coach or friend time you (giving you splits after each rep) or wear a watch, but you’re not allowed to look at it until after the session is complete. Make sure you take a 200m walk/jog recovery between each 600m rep.

Wrap up the workout with a one to two-mile cool-down and then spin home on your bike.

One-Hour Workout: Grace Norman’s “No Watch” Track Session

Warm-up

Main set

6 x 600m @ race pace – fast and controlled, with 200m jog recovery between each rep

Cool-down

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