Yasso 800s

 

I decided in order to reach my goal of a new PR in September, that I would add running Yasso 800s into my running routine.  I had read about Yasso 800s a few years ago when training for my first marathon (and even ran one set). I decided to dust off this training method and incorporate it into my running. Since my goal it so run a 5 hour marathon, that meant I had to run 800s in 5 minutes, followed by jogging for 5 minutes. You start the first week off doing 4 sets. Then you add addition 800 per week until you reach 10 sets.

This first set was not as hard as I thought it was going to be. Don't get me wrong, I did have to push myself, but I wasn't dying at the end of the 800.

After doing some research on my watch for following GPS courses, I found out about setting up a workout on it. I thought I would give it a try for my Yasso 800s. It was pretty easy to setup (I setup a warmup, 800, recovery (repeat steps), cool down). I then uploaded it to my watch and let it tell me when to go and when to slow. Here were my times:

1st 800: 4:56 (it felt good when I started off and my Garmin told me to slow down) 
2nd 800: 4:55 
3rd 800: 5:00 
4th 800: 5:04

Next week I do 5 800s.