Everything Counts

Smoking fast! Nice job - always nice when you start off faster than planned, then go faster from the new starting point.

Smoking hot! Those are some incredible splits. 2:14 on 10 is sick. Keep healthy and the rest of this racing season is going to be amazing for you.

Thanks fellas. I felt great this morning, maybe the 2 minutes was too much rest...I'd like to do this workout with a slow 2 minute jogging rest and see how much it slows me down. I'm guessing it would be quite a bit, I recover very well with passive rest.

On the 10th one, I ran the same pace for .4 and then kicked hard the last .1

Your time might slow down a little with a jogging rest, but this workout will be a big boost to your already fast turnover. Doing these solo is impressive. You could do these even faster with strong company.

I think you should up your goal for the TOU half. I suspect you will shatter the sub 1:09 goal.

Yeah having someone with you makes it easier for sure.

The reason I think the jogging rest would slow me down quite a bit (I'm thinking like 2:26-ish or 8 seconds per interval) is my heartrate got down to 110-115 during the rest. Whereas if I jogged in between it likely would stay in the 160s. That makes for a big difference.

As far as the TOU goal goes, I think it's very similar to Ogden and I ran a high 1:08 at Ogden. And I still think I was in better shape in May than I am now.

wow! Nice work. I knew you were a 2:16 marathoner, as per the Yasso 800 formula.

Fritz: Haha. Yeah it's nice to be a 2:18 marathoner in theory, but actually being one would be even better!

In all seriousness though I have too much middle-distance speed to take the Yasso 800s prediction seriously; my time would always be inflated (like today!).

If Yasso 800s were a true predictor, then every good high school team in the country would have 3-5 sub 2:22 marathoners! ;-)

When I run 800s, I like to do it off a 200m jog (~55 seconds)... I think there is room for both types of training - the longer rest allows you to actually hit VO2 (3K/5K) pace like you were doing today. Off shorter rest, you end up running more 10/15K pace. Both ways can have a really beneficial impact on your fitness.

Jake: I agree, Yasso 800s predict way too fast of times for people trained more for speed. I think it may actually come close for someone like you who puts the marathon mileage and training in. But, for most people it would inflate their times.

And then I am on the opposite end. Yasso's calc underpredicts my marathon time because I am not trained for speed. Riley, you should move to Salt Lake so we can balance this equation. :)

Bart Yasso never ran a 2:20 marathon :-)

It's funny you guys brought up the Yasso 800 theory--it's the first thing that came to my mind when I saw Riley's splits.

In all seriousness, I think Riley has a 2:18 marathon in him as soon as he decides to be a marathon runner :-)

Fritz: Yeah you teach me endurance and I'll teach you speed :) Also, I bet you could do 10 800s in 2:21, especially if you had someone doing it with you.

Scott: I appreciate the vote of confidence and I do think 2:18 is a possibility for me if I increased my mileage substantially. But, my body's lack of ability to handle huge mileage is a hinderance. I'm definitely no Jake Krong when it comes to my body's ability to handle mileage:)

But I have slowed down my easy runs on both Sasha's and Fritz's advice (and previously you too Scott; and I'm sure Jake would also recommend it). So, maybe I can get to 80 a week consistently in awhile without breaking down. We'll see.

haha yes I would definitely recommend running slower on easy runs as well. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that very few people run their recovery runs as slow as I do most of the time.

I'm trying to slow down, but it's honestly hard for me. I actually feel worse most of the time running slower, but maybe I'll get used to it. I've just never in my life done runs slower than like 6:45 pace so it's a huge change for me. But I have gone from 6:30-ish last year to 6:45-ish earlier this year and now closer to 7:05-ish. So, I'm getting there. Now I just need to convince Ken, my main training partner, to slow down, because he never goes slower than 6:30.

it took me a while to make that transition, but once you get used to running 8+ minute miles, its glorious! :-)

Haha, I'll take that on faith and keep trying to work my way down.

Then again - if I was doing less volume, I'd be itching to run quicker all the time as well.

Its a balance, like everything else.

Great workout Riley! That's truly impressive. I don't know how you're able to do so many 800s so fast like that.