speed methods discussion (split from favourite track workouts)

[Ironboy]

To paraphrase Ian:
Yasso himself originally designed the workout to have recovery exactly match the time to run the interval, so technically any other amount of recovery would be a different workout.

Longer recovery invalidates the speed of the later intervals because you get more rest, shorter recover means you aren't on you feet as long and won't be fatigued as you reach the end of the workout.

I'm confused by two things here:

(1) Shorter recoveries most certainly do not make an interval workout easier on account of less time on your feet. If the cumulative length of a few minutes of light jogging between intervals makes a workout too long, the solution is to do fewer intervals, not to shortcut the recoveries.

(2) When you paraphrased me, were you supporting my point or were you using my words against me to claim that I'm not doing Yasso 800s either because technically my recoveries don't exactly match the run times? (If it's the latter, I'd claim that 2:36-2:24 is close enough, especially if the recovery is a gentle walk/jog near the start & finish area so that I can sip some water and be in the right place for the next one.)

Ian,

You post made me smile. for number one, I didn't mean it might make it easier, physically anyway, perhaps mentally, and shorter recoveries may mean the last intervals are harder than they would otherwise be with a proper recovery, which invalidates the results posited by Yasso's test.

For number 2, I was using your words against you , sorry. You hadn't given numbers, so I would agree with you that 2:36/2:24 is close enough, for the convenience of the continous timer.

I just wanted to emphasize the importance of the recovery time matching the interval time, which was strongly reinforced when it was explained to me.

Didn't mean to be snarky. Well, I did, but not in a mean way.

[Robbie-T]

Why so much effort and discussion with length of "in between" time. We all know this is not an exact science, no two people are the same, therefore training methodologies change from coach to coach. Even Yasso's is not exact it is a gauge or a tool for determining possible race outcome in a perfect world.

keep it simpler, know that you need to take a rest between intervals, enough time to catch you breath and get your legs back, generally 2-4 minutes is fine. If you try to do exactly what you read you may either be not recovered enough to do the next one or recovered too much for the intervals to be useful.

[ultraslacker]

I agree-- the fact that you haven't done much racing recently due to injury is all the more reason to not have any time goal for a marathon now. Getting healthy and running consistently should be enough of a goal in itself... if not you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

+1

lol I thought you two would know me better than that by now. :P

Not a newbie, not cautious, and I rarely do things "properly". I understand why you'd advise caution for most people, but I just don't roll that way... I will wait and see what my hip does, but if by mid-January I am feeling ready to start a structured program, I *will* do it, and telling me not to is the best way to increase my motivation. ;) Stupid? Maybe, but if I were as cautious as you would have me be, I wouldn't have run *any* of my ultras... and where's the fun in that? :)

[dgrant]

Why so much effort and discussion with length of "in between" time. We all know this is not an exact science, no two people are the same, therefore training methodologies change from coach to coach. Even Yasso's is not exact it is a gauge or a tool for determining possible race outcome in a perfect world.

keep it simpler, know that you need to take a rest between intervals, enough time to catch you breath and get your legs back, generally 2-4 minutes is fine. If you try to do exactly what you read you may either be not recovered enough to do the next one or recovered too much for the intervals to be useful.

+1

I don't dispute for a second any of the helpful info given here by Michael, Ian or Pat, but I think each reader needs to self-analyze (honestly) and decide on its relative importance to him/herself. If you're running <50km/wk and looking at 4+hr marathon goals, the nitty gritty of all this is not what's going to make the difference on raceday. Not that it doesn't matter, but it's a fair way down the ladder of training priorities. Worrying about s/km on interval paces when you're running less than double your goal race distance per week is liking fussing over which sprinkles to put on the sundae before you've scooped the ice cream. Do 45 minutes per week of running (split over one or two runs) at huff-and-puff pace while getting your mileage up and I'd sure bet you'll see big improvements.

[Nicholas]

There is confusion around Yasso 800s. Bart Yasso originally designed (or discovered) this as a great marathon finish time predictor, when done a couple of weeks out from your target race. It is now being touted by others as a weekly speed session, where frequency grows from 4 to 10.

[Darth Tater]

Do 45 minutes per week of running (split over one or two runs) at huff-and-puff pace while getting your mileage up and I'd sure bet you'll see big improvements.

Do you mean per day? 45 minutes per week is pretty low....

[La]

Do 45 minutes per week of running (split over one or two runs) at huff-and-puff pace while getting your mileage up and I'd sure bet you'll see big improvements.

Do you mean per day? 45 minutes per week is pretty low....

I think he means "of your typical weekly run mileage" spend 45 minutes of that at "huff and puff" pace.

[Darth Tater]

Do 45 minutes per week of running (split over one or two runs) at huff-and-puff pace while getting your mileage up and I'd sure bet you'll see big improvements.

Do you mean per day? 45 minutes per week is pretty low....

I think he means "of your typical weekly run mileage" spend 45 minutes of that at "huff and puff" pace.

Ah, yes. That makes more sense than what I thought.

[Ironboy]

Why so much effort and discussion with length of "in between" time. We all know this is not an exact science, no two people are the same, therefore training methodologies change from coach to coach. Even Yasso's is not exact it is a gauge or a tool for determining possible race outcome in a perfect world.

keep it simpler, know that you need to take a rest between intervals, enough time to catch you breath and get your legs back, generally 2-4 minutes is fine. If you try to do exactly what you read you may either be not recovered enough to do the next one or recovered too much for the intervals to be useful.

+1

I don't dispute for a second any of the helpful info given here by Michael, Ian or Pat, but I think each reader needs to self-analyze (honestly) and decide on its relative importance to him/herself. If you're running <50km/wk and looking at 4+hr marathon goals, the nitty gritty of all this is not what's going to make the difference on raceday. Not that it doesn't matter, but it's a fair way down the ladder of training priorities. Worrying about s/km on interval paces when you're running less than double your goal race distance per week is liking fussing over which sprinkles to put on the sundae before you've scooped the ice cream. Do 45 minutes per week of running (split over one or two runs) at huff-and-puff pace while getting your mileage up and I'd sure bet you'll see big improvements.

I agree and disagree.

I think this holds true for most of us. As relatively new runners, I think by virtue of getting out the door and doing just about anything to raise our heart rate , we will show improvement. I venture to guess that even if we did no speedwork at all, we'd still improve, until we hit a certain plateau.

I think that's what makes life difficult for the more experienced runners, because we can, for the most part say, "Well I'm doing this and I'm improving".

I think once we reach that plateau, be it 6, 7 or 10 years depending on the individual, the intensity and volume of training in those years, more focused, more purposeful training is required to show those improvements.

And it may well be that in those early years we may have improved faster had we used these methods.

I may be completely wrong and I have nothing to back this up, but it's a theory of mine.

[ian]

Do 45 minutes per week of running (split over one or two runs) at huff-and-puff pace while getting your mileage up and I'd sure bet you'll see big improvements.

keep it simpler, know that you need to take a rest between intervals, enough time to catch you breath and get your legs back, generally 2-4 minutes is fine.

These are both good guidelines and pretty much describe my training philosophy for 80% of the year. (The last month before a goal race tends to be more carefully structured.)

From my end, the additional details were introduced to clarify the conditions under which Yasso 800s have any predictive power for a marathon time. If you drop the prediction requirement, you can tinker with the details to give yourself a good speed session that fits better with your style.

[MichaelMc]

Why so much effort and discussion with length of "in between" time. We all know this is not an exact science, no two people are the same, therefore training methodologies change from coach to coach. Even Yasso's is not exact it is a gauge or a tool for determining possible race outcome in a perfect world.

keep it simpler, know that you need to take a rest between intervals, enough time to catch you breath and get your legs back, generally 2-4 minutes is fine. If you try to do exactly what you read you may either be not recovered enough to do the next one or recovered too much for the intervals to be useful.

I agree to some degree, but in some cases the rest time IS critical. If you are doing short-to-medium distance VO2 max intervals and the rest time is too long then you really aren't getting a good VO2 max workout. Lets take Ian's 800m runs, which he completes in 2:24 (smoking!). If he took four minutes between efforts he would end up spending very little time stessing his oxygen system, as it takes some time to REACH VO2 max when you're fresh. I'm betting that for the first couple he doesn't even hit it, and it is only the fatigue and short recovery that gets him there. On the reverse, if someone is doing 400m reps and goes too SOON the pace they can sustain the same finishing time will be pretty slow. IMHO recovery time is a critical component; not cast in stone at some EXACT time mind you, but it does matter.

As for whether the form of speedwork matters for midpack runners, I say "Yes". While any proper speedwork will contribute, you may as well get the most out of your efforts. Lower mileage runners probably have less capacity for speedwork, so making sure the speedwork they do actually helps them might be more critical than for high mileage runners. If my Billat 3/3 VO2 max workout is over my head a bit, the balance of my program will probably still stress my VO2 max enough to keep it healthy: I've got 2-3 speed sessions a week (in peak training). "Wasting" the odd session won't do significant damage. If I was doing ONE speed session a week I'd want to make it count.

[Mid_Packer]

Just wanted to say thanks to all of the posters. I'm learn alot, and it really is great to know there so many of you our there who are generous enough with your time share.

Dave

[ian]

Lets take Ian's 800m runs, which he completes in 2:24 (smoking!).

Just so that rumors don't get started, the 2:24 was the rest and the 800m run time was 2:36. The rest of your post was accurate, though. One of the reasons I switched from "equal rest" to "go every 5 minutes" was to shorten the recoveries slightly so that I could spend a bit more time in the proper VO2 zone. Similarly, when I am running intervals with others (with the same pace), I find I recover more quickly between intervals than they do & I will often jog backwards to compensate.

[MichaelMc]

Lets take Ian's 800m runs, which he completes in 2:24 (smoking!).

...the 800m run time was 2:36. ... when I am running intervals with others (with the same pace), I find I recover more quickly between intervals than they do & I will often jog backwards to compensate.

Show off!

I'd also like to thank everyone for the discussion: it is easy to get into habits, and good to hear how others approach their training to keep thinking about better ways.

Michael

[La]

I think one of the benefits of talking about workouts in specific terms is that it helps a speed-work novice to get an idea of the types of workouts they could be doing. And we're all busy, so nobody wants to waste their time doing a workout that's not going to be effective. Or, get discouraged that we can't complete a workout because we haven't done it correctly (i.e., only took 15 seconds rest between intervals when you should have taken 2-3 minutes).

Going back to the comment Ian made about doing his 800s on 5-minute time intervals, that reminds me that as runners, we don't tend to do workouts like that very often. Yet swimmers do those types of sets all the time (e.g., 100s on 1:50). The idea being - the faster you do the interval, the more rest you get. Is that something that would be beneficial to apply in running?

[ian]

Going back to the comment Ian made about doing his 800s on 5-minute time intervals, that reminds me that as runners, we don't tend to do workouts like that very often. Yet swimmers do those types of sets all the time (e.g., 100s on 1:50). The idea being - the faster you do the interval, the more rest you get. Is that something that would be beneficial to apply in running?

I'm a little skeptical because running an interval faster -- in order to "earn" a longer rest -- is not something you'd want to encourage if it involves moving past the upper boundary of the specific training zone being targeted. I don't know enough about swimming to speculate on why the logic is different there.

The main reason that I start the 800s every 5 minutes is for the convenience of leaving my watch running continuously rather than fiddling with buttons at the start and end of every interval. For most speed workouts, where I'm not as fussy with the duration of the rest period, I'll time each interval directly.

One related point: since it is XC season, I am often a part of group workouts on the trails where distances and paces are hard to measure. We often do things like 10x(2 minutes hard, 1 minute jog) and there's no reason why this couldn't be used more generally.

[Kristen]

-

[ultraslacker]

I think one of the benefits of talking about workouts in specific terms is that it helps a speed-work novice to get an idea of the types of workouts they could be doing. And we're all busy, so nobody wants to waste their time doing a workout that's not going to be effective. Or, get discouraged that we can't complete a workout because we haven't done it correctly (i.e., only took 15 seconds rest between intervals when you should have taken 2-3 minutes).

And... even though we may not worry about *exact* paces/recoveries, we can still get within a helpful range... if we can do that more than we were doing before, then that's a good thing... I think. :)

[Jwolf]

One related point: since it is XC season, I am often a part of group workouts on the trails where distances and paces are hard to measure. We often do things like 10x(2 minutes hard, 1 minute jog) and there's no reason why this couldn't be used more generally.

I actually prefer to do speedwork like this now.

[Jwolf]

I agree-- the fact that you haven't done much racing recently due to injury is all the more reason to not have any time goal for a marathon now. Getting healthy and running consistently should be enough of a goal in itself... if not you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

+1

lol I thought you two would know me better than that by now.

Not a newbie, not cautious, and I rarely do things "properly". I understand why you'd advise caution for most people, but I just don't roll that way... I will wait and see what my hip does, but if by mid-January I am feeling ready to start a structured program, I *will* do it, and telling me not to is the best way to increase my motivation. Stupid? Maybe, but if I were as cautious as you would have me be, I wouldn't have run *any* of my ultras... and where's the fun in that?

I wasn't trying to tell you to do or not to do anything or to be cautious against your nature ... just to have reasonable expectations.

[ultraslacker]

"reasonable" is in the eye of the beholder. :P

I'm pretty sure most people would have thought it unreasonable to run my first 50k less than a week after a marathon... and some of the other dumb things I've done. But I have no regrets and would do it all the same if given the chance to do it over. Nothing wrong with shooting for the goal in May... if I miss, I miss, and do it again later.

[Pat Menzies]

I would again like to bring up the concept of racing all out. We discussed this in a thread about enduring pain/discomfort and how the body learns how to cope with it.
If you jump to longer races and skip the short painful stuff you tend to learn how to race conservatively and rarely if ever take chances and go really hard.
Many people on that thread stated how they couldn't recall too many races where they gave their all. You do need to do a couple of short races to find out what that is like. In doing that you will surprise yourself and realize that many of your training paces should actually be a bit faster. It is pretty easy to NOT do short test races and dodge the hard work you probably could do by keeping yourself in the dark as to your true potential.
That description fits a significant number of people.

[richie-rich]

I would again like to bring up the concept of racing all out. We discussed this in a thread about enduring pain/discomfort and how the body learns how to cope with it.
If you jump to longer races and skip the short painful stuff you tend to learn how to race conservatively and rarely if ever take chances and go really hard.
Many people on that thread stated how they couldn't recall too many races where they gave their all. You do need to do a couple of short races to find out what that is like. In doing that you will surprise yourself and realize that many of your training paces should actually be a bit faster. It is pretty easy to NOT do short test races and dodge the hard work you probably could do by keeping yourself in the dark as to your true potential.
That description fits a significant number of people.

i agree. intervals hurt (well the last few anyway). i've been doing more speedwork and my 10k and half times have come down. 5k - that's a different story but still working on it. because of this i've bumped up my tempo pace and my LSD pace.

[JSmitty]

I would again like to bring up the concept of racing all out. We discussed this in a thread about enduring pain/discomfort and how the body learns how to cope with it.
If you jump to longer races and skip the short painful stuff you tend to learn how to race conservatively and rarely if ever take chances and go really hard.
Many people on that thread stated how they couldn't recall too many races where they gave their all. You do need to do a couple of short races to find out what that is like. In doing that you will surprise yourself and realize that many of your training paces should actually be a bit faster. It is pretty easy to NOT do short test races and dodge the hard work you probably could do by keeping yourself in the dark as to your true potential.
That description fits a significant number of people.

i agree. intervals hurt (well the last few anyway). i've been doing more speedwork and my 10k and half times have come down. 5k - that's a different story but still working on it. because of this i've bumped up my tempo pace and my LSD pace.

Can a 10k race be considered a "shorter race"!

[Pat Menzies]

It's better but nothing beats a 5k.