I’ve been kind of putting off speed work lately because it’s just not my favorite part of running. BUT, I realize in order to get faster/stronger you have to put in the work. So tonight I reluctantly hit the river loop for my first Yasso 800 workout.
What are Yasso 800’s?
- Take your marathon goal time in hours/minutes and convert this to minutes/seconds. For example, if your marathon goal is 3 hours and 10 minutes then convert that to 3 minutes and 10 seconds.
- Try to run 800 meters (approximately 1/2 mile) in your converted time (3:10 in this example).
- Recover after each 800 by jogging or walking for the same amount of time (again, 3:10 in this example). (Source)
My training plan called for the following:
- 1 easy mile warm-up
- 800 x5 @4:55 with 1 min rest between
- 1 easy mile cool down
| 1 mile warm-up | 10:14:50 |
| 800 M | 4:30:76 |
| 1:00 | REST |
| 800 M | 4:35:60 |
| 1:00 | REST |
| 800 M | 4:34:67 |
| 1:00 | REST |
| 800 M | 4:33:10 |
| 1:00 | REST |
| 800 M | 4:33:27 |
| 1:00 | REST |
| 1 mile cool down | 10:16:92 |
As mentioned in this post, my ultimate goal is sub-4:50 at the Detroit Free Press marathon. So, seeing that I was able to run my 800’s in 4:35ish made me feel pretty damn good!
Also, I realized after I started typing this post that I did the Yasso’s a bit wrong (should have done an easy jog of the same time between 800’s) so I will correct that next week.
The best thing about today’s run, though, was the consistency. I am not the greatest pacer and I tend to have very uneven splits, so I was happy to see this! And it was fun!
