During track he tried to get us to do 8x600 at mile pace with 2 mins rest. It felt insanely tough and left our entire team burnt out and tired. Is this a reasonable but tough workout, or just a stupid workout.
During track he tried to get us to do 8x600 at mile pace with 2 mins rest. It felt insanely tough and left our entire team burnt out and tired. Is this a reasonable but tough workout, or just a stupid workout.
Depends. You used the word reasonable. To me, it seems like you just don't want to work that hard to get better. I truly don't know. however, I can say this 600's are a bear to do, didn't like them but did them.
I realized after a time they were meant to have me hold form and pace for another 200 . That's all. Yes, there is misery while doing them. You will benefit from them.
If you're 25 and have the body and training of El G, then yes it's a reasonable workout.
I feel like the best reason to be running 600s would be aerobic power workouts late in the season, but those have 1:1 rests, and you'd only need to run five or six of them.
I'd guess that, among other things, it depends some on the total volume of training you've been doing. It's 4800 meters total. We often see guys do 12 x 400 at mile pace; this is the same volume. And it seems like 2:00 should be a reasonable rest--if your mile pace is faster than 80sec/400, then your work bouts here are actually shorter in time than your recoveries.
I'm thinking at least three things might have made this tough. First, as someone pointed out above, most people just aren't used to doing 600s, and the sheer unfamiliarity (and accompanying tension?) can make them seem hard.
Second, if you got this workout early in the season, the pace (esp. if it was your goal pace, not your current mile pace) may just have been difficult to maintain--not a "smooth" speed for you at that point, so the reps would have felt like a semi-sprint instead of a mile-stride speed.
Third, if guys were trying to push *faster* than mile pace, or racing each other a little, that could start to hurt in a hurry. You build a lot more oxygen debt in a too-fast 600 than in a too-fast 400! That's part of the value of 600s--you learn to just run them and not race them--but it's definitely part of their difficulty, too.
TL, DR: The workout's reasonable (but tough) if you have been running enough total volume; if you have a good idea of your *current* mile pace and will stick to it; and if you run each 600 with a middle-distance intensity and form, and not as a semi-sprint (the way some guys run 400s).
And it'll be easier if you've run 600s in a workout previously.
Yes . . .one or the other.
Ive done this very workout but only with male junior and seniors late in the season. The rest was 200m jog. In my experience most average just above mile pace.
Maybe your coach is wondering the same thing about you.
RIP: D3 All-American Frank Csorba - who ran 13:56 in March - dead
RENATO can you talk about the preparation of Emile Cairess 2:06
Running for Bowerman Track Club used to be cool now its embarrassing
Great interview with Steve Cram - says Jakob has no chance of WRs this year
Hats off to my dad. He just ran a 1:42 Half Marathon and turns 75 in 2 months!