Yasso 800s

[fitfool]

Took me a long time to get out the door. I had already skipped last Friday and Saturday's runs. Tonight was a speed workout which I tend to dread. Schedule called for 6x800s. I had read about the Yasso 800s workout and decided to try for 10 but was willing to call it quits if I felt too tired after 6. The workout consists of a warm-up, then run 800m at a fast but controlled pace. Jog 400m to recover in about the same amount of time spent running and then repeat. The pace is set by your goal marathon time. If you want to run a marathon in 4 hours and 30 minutes, then each 800m repeat should be run in 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Or if you wanted a 3:25 marathon, then your repeats are run in 3 minutes 25 seconds. Sounds simple enough. I had used the Macmillan running calculator to set my goal paces at 3:59 to 4:10 for each repeat.

For the first 3 repeats, I did the recovery jogs. For the next 3, I used a walk/jog recovery. The next 3 were much more walking than jogging to recover. But the recovery times were about 4-5 minutes. I felt good and powerful to be doing all of those repeats. I was excited by the prospect of finishing a marathon in just 4:10. Seems pretty unlikely but it does make the possibility of doing a 4:30 a little more real to me. I wonder if those long recovery times mean I won't reap the full benefits of this workout but at least I got out there and ran them. Misty to light rain the whole time. At least it was warm.
1 - 4:00
2 - 4:16
3 - 4:22
4 - 4:15
5 - 4:11
6 - 4:18
7 - 4:00
8 - 4:01
9 - 3:57
10- 3:54
so overall average is 4:08