I love intervals, and in partcular sprints, blimey that's fun! I'm reading Joe Friel's The Cyclist's Training Bible these days, and at one point he writes that natural sprinters love those short burst intervals - just confirmed once again that I'm one of those...

I've always heard that one should improve endurance first, long steady pace workouts, and I've always disliked it. Not the steady pace in itself, but I always felt like I never ran for long enough (I was originally a runner, and I still do a fair amount of running), even though I spent quite some time every week running. Then I started doing interval workouts, and I loved it. Just the idea of having a set program, something that I could finish, instead of just finishing because I ran out of time, felt fantastic. And in six months I experienced better progress than the last three preceding years.

Funnily enough I've been fooled back into the steady pace stuff when I started cycling, going for dreadfully long group rides at far too high a HR. However, I think I need to get into a more systematic training schedule in order to see the progress required to do massed starts.