Here’s another “can’t get on the track” workout to do on your own or with a friend. Again, find a flat surface with good footing for this workout. Remember to warm up well with lunges and leg swings, plus at least 10–15 minutes of jogging and a 1-minute pickup followed by 1 minute of jogging to get the heart rate and leg turnover up. Cool down with another 10 minutes easy. Bonus points for doing the strength and mobility exercises afterward.
This is a 200-200-800 track workout at its heart, but to modify it for the roads, run for 40-60 seconds at I pace, followed by 1 minute of jogging, another 40-60 seconds at I pace, followed by 1 minute of jogging, followed by 2:45-4:00 minutes at I pace, followed by 4 minutes of jogging. The ranges are for you to pick your 200m and 800m times from the Jack Daniels calculator. Try for 3-4 sets of that 200-200-800 combination, but if you feel your form falling apart toward the end, cut it short.
Those whose weekly mileage is under 20 miles can run 2 or 3 sets.
Since we can’t be together as a group, if you have a few minutes, report back on where you did this workout and how it went!
And if anyone wants to organize a particular pace-group workout time/place, feel free to post here, too.
And if anyone is doing these on a treadmill, here’s a ChatGPT script I use to generate a workout table I just tape to the screen and use to track my workout.
My running paces are assigned per letter as follows: E 8:00-9:00; M 7:11; T 6:46; I 6:13; R 5:49. In this workout, I need you to convert meters to miles, where 400m means 400 meters and equates to .25 miles. This is the workout: 1 mile warmup, then 3 sets of: 200m at R pace 200m recovery, 200m at R pace 200m recovery, 800m at I pace 400m recovery. Conclude with a 1 mile cooldown Make me a table that shows each segment of the workout with its starting and ending mileage in miles, and the pace to run each segment.
If you’re doing them outside where it’s cold and potentially a little slippery, I think you should stick with I pace. If you’re on a treadmill and are comfortable running at R pace on it, that’s even better.
Great! I did hang on for R pace (with the safety leash for good measure!), and managed two sets through the workout before of my morning meetings started. Hope everyone has a great workout and can’t wait to see you again inside Barton!
Thanks Scott! I copied this, changed to my VDOT paces, and asked for the pace to run each segment to be in mph. Worked great. Now I’ll have to see if I can run R pace on the treadmilll (little scary).
