My favorite workout

Like I could only pick one favorite workout – not a chance. This is ONE of many of my favorite workouts.

Here’s the deal with Yasso’s. Bart Yasso is a crazy runner and good too – note that I did not say he’s crazy good, but crazy and good. He’s run on every continent, in the nude, every distance known to man, through jungles and tundra… His book, My Life on the Run was a quick and fun read that I’d definitely recommend. Anyway, he didn’t really invent this workout, but he likes it a lot, so it just kind of got named after him.

Here’s the workout: Do a 1-2 mile warm-up. Start out with about 5X800m with a 400m recovery jog in-between. Take full advantage of the recovery!! As far as pace goes, you want the fastest possible average time that you can manage. This means you need to take it a little easy at first, because those last couple are going to be a doozie! A little faster than your best 5k pace is a good time to shoot for. After the 800’s do a mile or two for a cool-down.

Here’s the progression: Do Yasso’s once a week, adding one repeat every week without letting your average pace drop, eventually getting up to 10x800m. Now, if you’re just starting out running, it’s probably not time for you to jump into a 5x800m workout with 4 miles in the warm-up/cool-down – that’s a tough workout. Start with 1 mile each w/u and c/d and 3-4 repeats. Go from there. If you’re already a seasoned vet, you can start with 5-6 and limit the recovery to 2-3 minutes. Or, (this is crazy awesome), for a super-hard workout, instead of recovery, do 20 burpees, then get right back into the 800m repeats. After 100 burpees and 2.5 miles of speed work, you’re gonna’ be pretty sore. ; )

Here’ the neat thing: the average of your 10x800m repeats can be a pretty accurate predictor of your marathon time! So, if you average 3:30 on the repeats, you could reasonable expect a 3:30:00 for the marathon! Shooting to break 4 hours for the marathon? Try to work up to 10x800m in an average of 4:00 each. Pretty neat, huh?

Thanks Yasso. Happy running.