My First Yasso 800 -- August 8th

Today I was pumped up to do a speed workout after reading on the Runnersworld site about Yasso 800s. I had heard about them and had done them a couple of times in 2004 during my marathon training. I plan on seriously trying them out for the SJ half marathon training.

Basically a Yasso 800 is simple: If you are targeting a 4:00 hr marathon, you should plan to run 800 meter repeats in 4:00 minutes. Yasso recommends starting with 4 repeats (with recovery jogs of the same time as the 800 meters) and building up to 10 repeats.

We went to the gym at around 8:30 pm, my original plan was to do 4 repeats. After stretching and warming up for a mile or so, i started with my first Yasso 800. I did 3 repeats of 800 meters, each in 2 minutes (7.5 mph) and recovery jogs for 4 mins at about 5.5 mph. After running half of the 4th repeat, i was dead tired and had to stop. Phew! quite a speed workout (Total overall distance ~ 3.75 miles).

Hoping to increase the number of repeats next week.