Sunday, July 15, 2007

The Yassos begin

Back to the track today. Yassos - half mile repeats - were on the schedule. Five of them. Ugh. Yassos suck. And they're way too hard. And there's way too many of them. And each one takes way too long to complete. But they work. I kind of faked five of them by using the first one for a warmup. That evasion is not going to work as well when I'm supposed to do 7 or 8 of them in a few weeks (all leading up to the Marine Corps Marathon on October 28):

Here's the data you've all been waiting for:

1. 5:21
2. 4:37
3. 4:48
4. 4:53
5. 4:56

And a chart! Hooray!


Just for reference, this is what my training paces are supposed to be right about now. 4:37 to 4:50 for Yassos. I guess I'm close enough, for a first attempt this year.

Or more simply:
My easy run training pace is: 12:08 min/mile
My tempo run training pace is: 10:11 min/mile
My maximum oxygen training pace is: 9:13 min/mile
My speed form training pace is: 8:32 min/mile
My long run training pace is: 12:08 - 13:36 min/mile
My Yasso 800s training pace is: 4:43 min/800m

3 comments:

21stCenturyMom said...

Yasso are great if you really, really do them correctly. You have to do a recovery run between repeats for the same amount of time as your repeats. If you can do 10 then you can do a sub 5 hour marathon. If you stop and walk inbetween it doesn't work - trust me.

They are SO hard but I do believe they work if you give youself enough time to work up to 10.

Vickie said...

Hopefully, you will learn to like these AND benefit from them as well. They reall do work at building pacing and strength, but of course they are hard to do alone too. I'm sure once you are halfway through the program you will see some increased speed and strength.

Noah Wood - A Maryland Runner said...

Wow, great work Nancy. Despite how tired you seemed to be, they still seem quite consistent and the rest faster than the first!!! I find with doin' intervals on my own is that it's sometimes easier on me psychologically to measure some courses off the track and run like mile repeats or something on them. Although there are usually hills and you don't always get the benefits of checkin' out your splits that easily, the variety and scenery make it a little less tedious! Happy running!