Yasso 800 Tuesdays

Due to my less than stellar run last month in Ottawa, I have decided to up my speed training to work on my lactate threshold. After reading up on various speed training techniques and strategies, I have decided to keep it simple and try Yasso 800's.

Yasso 800's provide a measure to predict your marathon time based on your most consistent 800 meter speed repeats. This speed workout was coined by Runner's World race service manager, Bart Yasso. The idea is that you have to run your desired marathon time in consistent 800 meter repeats, with equal rest intervals in between. For example, if you want to run a 3:45 marathon, then you should be able to run 800 meters in 3 minutes, 45 seconds 10 times with equal rest periods between each speed interval. This sounds simple, so I am willing to put it to the test. I started tonight with 4 repeats, and I will work my way up to 10 repeats. So, although I have not yet pinned my fall marathon time goal, I would like it to be less than 4 hours, so I went out tonight wanting to feel like I could run all four intervals comfortably. Here are my results:

Interval one: 3 min, 48 seconds

Interval two: 3 min, 49 seconds

Interval three: 3 min, 45 seconds

Interval four: 3 min, 38 seconds (I had some left in the tank)

Not too shabby, but we will see if I can keep this up for all 10 repeats, and more importantly, how closely my marathon result is to this strategy. All in all, it was a good workout. I will post my weekly results here to keep me motivated.

I also want to mention that an old high school friend of mine, Lynda has started her own blog, Running to Stay Sane. Go by and say hello. I also want to thank everyone who has come by and visited my blog already, the online running community ROCKS!!

Thanks for reading!