Yasso 800's

"And now you've got an easier way: you've got Yasso 800s. Want to run a 3:30 marathon? Then train to run a bunch of 800s in 3:30 each. Between the 800s, jog for the same number of minutes it took you to run your repeats. Training doesn't get any simpler than this, not on this planet or anywhere else in the solar system.

Bart begins running his Yasso 800s a couple of months before his goal marathon. The first week he does four. On each subsequent week, he adds one more until he reaches 10. The last workout of Yasso 800s should be completed at least 10 days before your marathon, and 14 to 17 days would probably be better.

The rest of the time, just do your normal marathon training, paying special attention to weekend long runs. Give yourself plenty of easy runs and maybe a day or two off during the week." ~ Amby Burfoot, Runner's World 09/28/2001

 Tonight we began our speed work and we did two Yasso 800's and two leapfrog-style surges. We alternated them and I ran with the 4:20 group. We had no idea how to pace ourselves in the first Yasso and went out at a 100m dash, record-setting pace. I think we made Bolt look like a slacker, until our heart and lungs started to explode out of our chests and our pace backed off and then regulated. We managed to finish the first Yasso in 4:22. The second in 4:19. Not bad at all. I realized that John, one of our pace group members, had the pace down to a "T", so we just had to stick by him.

I enjoyed the surges, too. We used to do workouts like this in flatwater canoe/kayak training. We ran in a line at just slightly under Yasso pace, and the person in the back of the line surges to overtake the lead and so on. I enjoyed the pace and rhythm of this training technique.

Overall I loved the workout tonight. It was challenging and felt good engaging the fast twitch muscles. We put in about 7.2km overall including a 2km warm-up and cool down. I look forward to building on this next week!