Your thoughts on 12 x 400m at 5K pace w/ 15 sec. rest as a staple 5K workout?

but wait wrote:

I think the point that Owen Anderson was trying to make and what peaked my interest in the first place was that a super short rest (15 seconds) is precisely beneficial because it has a "greater impact on lactate threshold" (pg 406). I'm not a physiologist but I take it that the build-up of lactate is greater and there is less time to clear it, no?

400s at your current 5k race pace would not build up much lactate. Your HR doesn't even really get elevated to a plateau before you are done with the 400. So a really short recovery seems fine. By the time you have finished the workout, you should be feeling it pretty good. So, not so hard as a race, but getting there.

My preferred workout that sort of fits into this category is repeat miles at current 5k race pace with a 100 meter jog between. I feel like an "equal time" recovery is hugely too long. But I am much more a endurance runner than a speed runner.

somebloke wrote:

congratulation, you have found daniels tempo intervals. yawn.

If you mean Daniels' cruise intervals (he doesn't have anything called tempo intervals), then no, these are completely different. If you re-read the thread you'll get it.

simplestuff wrote:

Not as a staple IMO. It depends on what one is trying to train. Suggest doing the repeats closer to or at VO2max pace and increasing the active recovery to ~ 40-45 seconds. If wanting to do them at 5k pace, change it to a critical velocity workout ... 1k's with 1 minute active recovery.

isnt CV closer to 10k pace?

Old Walker (But not the doper) wrote:

400s at your current 5k race pace would not build up much lactate. Your HR doesn't even really get elevated to a plateau before you are done with the 400. So a really short recovery seems fine. By the time you have finished the workout, you should be feeling it pretty good. So, not so hard as a race, but getting there.

Maybe someone can explain why a 15 second rest has a "greater impact on lactate threshold" I'm just trying to understand the physiology of running at 5K pace for about 80 seconds lets say and then resting for 15 seconds before doing it again.

but wait wrote:

Old Walker (But not the doper) wrote:

400s at your current 5k race pace would not build up much lactate. Your HR doesn't even really get elevated to a plateau before you are done with the 400. So a really short recovery seems fine. By the time you have finished the workout, you should be feeling it pretty good. So, not so hard as a race, but getting there.

Maybe someone can explain why a 15 second rest has a "greater impact on lactate threshold" I'm just trying to understand the physiology of running at 5K pace for about 80 seconds lets say and then resting for 15 seconds before doing it again.

I would assume what he meant was that if you keep the rest really short you would start to push up the lactate in your muscles and therefore stress that system. But there seem to be better ways to achieve the same outcome. You might need to reach out to the original author.

but wait wrote:

"In addition, Babineau and Leger found that lactate levels were significantly higher during the 400 workout compared with both the 800 and 1600 sessions. This is actually a good thing since high lactate levels are a potent stimulus for the improvement of lactate-threshold running velocity, a good predictor of 5K success"

from pgs 405-406

"Running Science"

by Owen Anderson

What were lactate levels during zero rest? Might as well race.

West Coast Kid wrote:

but wait wrote:

"In addition, Babineau and Leger found that lactate levels were significantly higher during the 400 workout compared with both the 800 and 1600 sessions. This is actually a good thing since high lactate levels are a potent stimulus for the improvement of lactate-threshold running velocity, a good predictor of 5K success"

from pgs 405-406

"Running Science"

by Owen Anderson

What were lactate levels during zero rest? Might as well race.

This. If you want to maximize blood lactate, just do an all-out 1500 or something

This is probably the closest thing to a race without being a race but I'm curious as to how much those 15 seconds matter. If it makes 5K pace feel more tolerable then maybe it has potential? I'm going to give this workout a go and report back.

It has no sense! Your body needs more recovery ! It is during the recovery the main thing happens! COACH J.S

recover down to 60% of MHR or roughly 120 bpm....thats the best individual recovery! COACH J.S

I always thought the point of those 800s was that your marathon pace would be the time in hours that your 800 was in minutes.

So, if you run 10x800 in 2:28 then your marathon pace would be 2:28 (presuming you are trained for a marathon) whereas if you ran 2:28 pace for the 800s you would be running 2:48s and your predicted marathon would be 2:48 which lines up reasonable well with a 16:44.

If you actually ran 10x800 in 2:28 then your 5k PB is quite weak in comparison as you are running 8km of intervals at a pace faster than your 5k PB pace by a good margin.

COACH J.S å ä ö wrote:

It has no sense! Your body needs more recovery ! It is during the recovery the main thing happens! COACH J.S

What do you mean by "the main thing"?

BEES KNEES

bees_knees wrote:

COACH J.S å ä ö wrote:

It has no sense! Your body needs more recovery ! It is during the recovery the main thing happens! COACH J.S

What do you mean by "the main thing"?

BEES KNEES

Your name suggests you understand the bees. Do I to educate you about the birds as well. Then you will understand the main thing.

My first reaction was like most people's here: 'That sounds weird! Too little rest! Do 1000s with 2:00 rest! Do 1600s with 4:00 rest!"

But this would actually be a very normal set for swimmers. Foe example, for the 1500m freestyle (closest equivalent event to the 5k), a guy with ~16:30 ability certainly might do 12x100, hitting race pace of 1:05 per 100 and leaving on the 1:20. (15s rest.)

So I don't really know why this seems so weird to runners, including me. It's probably closer to replicating a race experience than doing the same distance in 3-4 intervals with equal rest.

Slugger wrote:

If you do 10x800 and equal rest apparently you can run that for a marathon! I just race the workout and apparently I can run a 2:28 with a 16:44 5k PR! Try that.

Sjure, shure, sure you can run a marathon. But you might not run for a year afterwards if you did not do some long runs in training.

but wait wrote:

First heard about this workout from Owen Anderson's book "Running Science." I have always preferred longer intervals (1000m-1600m) w/ equal work: rest ratio in my own training.

That session is just too intense as a staple workout, as usual from that author. Practically you´re racing by yourself in a workout if doing that.

applying the USRPT and HIIT wrote:

My first reaction was like most people's here: 'That sounds weird! Too little rest! Do 1000s with 2:00 rest! Do 1600s with 4:00 rest!"

But this would actually be a very normal set for swimmers. Foe example, for the 1500m freestyle (closest equivalent event to the 5k), a guy with ~16:30 ability certainly might do 12x100, hitting race pace of 1:05 per 100 and leaving on the 1:20. (15s rest.)

Swimmers can perform workouts with much less recovery than runners. Jan Olbrecht suggests that runners multiply the recovery time by 4.

I don't believe in doing (10 to 12) x 400m at anything slower than 1500m/one mile race pace. When one races 5K, one doesn't get to stop every 400m. I do (5 or 6) x 1200m @ 5000m race pace with (90 to 2mn) recovery. When I train for 10K, I will do 5x2000m @ 10000m race pace with 45 seconds recovery. Anything shorter than 10000m pace, I find recovery less than one minute, unproductive.

How can it be a 5k workout if you don't even cover 5k? No idea.