Tom Osler's Sharpening

I did, BITD.

Unfortunately, I really wasn't ready to do it right, because I didn't understand about his suggestion to loosen up with a few accelerations, then move to the 800s. I had had a period of all-slow running--in training, I never turned my legs over fast--so the initial pickups (which I basically ran as sprints, not gradual accelerations) didn't loosen me up, but rather the opposite.

In essence, I then ran some 800s (or whatever) about as well as I could manage, and ran my normal training pace inbetween--never slowed to a recovery pace. This got me into pretty good shape, but I was absolutely trashed at the end of these sessions, which lasted about an hour. I can remember sitting on a bench in the locker room for a long time before summoning the strength to walk to the showers.

Were I to do it over again,
a) I would certainly have a mix of speeds in my base training period, and would always keep in touch with my skill of faster running--either through occasional fartlek-type sessions, or by running some end-of-workout accelerations a couple times each week.
b) I would make the "fast" 800s just a bit faster (in the initial workout or two) than my normal training pace, and would then gradually speed them up from one week to the next, as I adapted.

In general I think Tom had the right idea, I just didn't implement it very well (and yet I still got some decent results). Tom was also a really slow-twitch guy and could stay fit with steady-paced running (and the occasional race) for much of his year; I was not, and needed something beyond steady-paced running in my foundational period.

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