yasoo 800s

$1000 dollars say Geb could run them all about 1:55-1:57 and that just aint gonna happen for a marathon

uh, how is running 800's every week adding variety? that is the problem with blindly following a runner's world workout. throw in some 1000's and 1200's to spice things up a little bit.

i mean according to rw, i could be good by doing only a track workout, tempo run, and long run every week. that's a ton of variety for me -- i gotta have at least some enjoyment in some of my runs (i guess that is what rw thinks the long run is for).

The Yasso 800's are, in the parlance of science, a "necessary, but not sufficient, condition" for a given marathon time.

If you cannot do 10x800 at 2:30 on 1:15 rest at 90% effort, then you cannot run a 2:30 marathon. But, if you CAN do that 800 workout, you still might not be able to do the 2:30 marathon. Read the HADD post for the explanation of how your times over various distances can become "disconnected" without proper aerobic conditioning. Yasso assumes you have trained properly (not just "a lot"), and that you have a stable relationship across distances.

Yasso has made this clarifying point countless times, yet amateur logicians want to keep forgetting it. If you're going to slag the guy, at least read his actual writings so you know what you're talking about.

A better predictor by far is your half marathon time. Otherwise, forget the Yasson baloney.

By Yasso predictions, Seb Coe could have run under two hours for the marathon. It makes no sense at all.

I think this workout is only good as a ballpark predictor when the 800's are run comfortably, like a faster tempo run, and the recovery period is only a 200 jog or thereabouts.

Hammering the 800s is obviously not going to result in an equivalent 'thon.

I did Yasoo 800s leading up to my marathon in 2001. I did the 800s once a week starting about 6-8 weeks out from the marathon. I started with 4 or 5 800s and worked up to 10 800s about 2 weeks before the marathon. I ran my 800s between 3:15 and 3:20 with a slow jog lap in between each 800. Finished the marathon in 3:22. It was my first marathon. At least for me, it proved to be a good workout during the week and ended up being a pretty good predictor of my marathon time.

You ran 3:22. Simply getting out the door and running is also a good predictor of performance. You probably would have run 3:00 with more miles, longer long runs, etc.

The fact that these Yasso 800s come from Runnersworld says a lot about who they are targeted for, as does the above.

Arsehole

Whatever arsehole. If I did a lot more mileage, long runs, etc., I would able to go faster. Wow. You are brilliant.

arsehole and guiness, remember that if he had run more miles and a longer long run, he may have also been doing that workout in 3:00.

i think that's what the yasso is meant for: people like guiness, who are in the 2:50-3:30 range.

I think as you get faster than that, it starts being less and less accurate, as the 800s become more anaerobic to give faster athletes a decent workout. for example, doing 10 800s at 2:05 simply isn't a great workout for KK or Paul Tergat. similarly, an american OT qualifier isn't going to be pushing himself to nail 2:22 10 times over. Instead, athletes of the greater caliber will likely run the 800s faster in order to get a better workout in, and in effect, ruin the prediction factor.

for those slower athletes, say in the 2:50-3:20 range, the endurance or speed probably isn't there in order to push the envelope the way KK or Paul Tergat or an OT qualifier could. hence, the times equate to a similar performance in the thon. that's my take anyways.

Dumbest thing i heard was someone bashing something they do no research on.Yasso did his and many runners found it does give an idea on what they can do if traing for a marathon.I have done 4 marathons and it seems to work for me.

does anyone see the pattern....it works for slow recreational RUNNERS WORLD SUBSCRIBERS. not fit well-trained distance runners.

Yasso?s 800s

by Amby Burfoot

When physicists discover a new subatomic particle, they claim the right to name it. Same with astronomers. Locate a new star out there in the way beyond, and you can name it anything you want: Clarence, Sarah, Mork or even Mindy.

I think runners, coaches and writers should be able to do the same. And I'm going to take this opportunity to invoke the privilege.

Last fall I discovered an amazing new marathon workout. Amazing, because it's the simplest marathon workout you've ever heard. (And simplicity in marathon training, as in physics and astronomy, is much to be prized.) Amazing, because I'm convinced it actually works.

In truth, I didn't find this workout. It found me, through the person of Bart Yasso. But Bart's not much of a proselytizer, while I sometimes am, so I'm going to seize this chance to name the workout. I'm going to call it "Yasso 800s."

Bart and I were at the Portland Marathon last September when he told me about his workout. He was training for a marathon later in the fall, so two days before Portland he went to a nearby track and ran Yasso 800s. "I'm trying to build up to ten 800s in the same time as my marathon goal time," he told me.

Huh? Half-miles in 2 or 3 hours? I didn't get it.

Bart saw that he'd have to do more explaining. "I've been doing this particular workout for about 15 years," he continued, "and it always seems to work for me. If I can get my 800s down to 2 minutes 50 seconds, I'm in 2:50 marathon shape. If I can get down to 2:40 (minuses), I can run a 2:40 marathon. I'm shooting for a 2:37 marathon right now, so I'm running my 800s in 2:37."

Suddenly things started to make sense. But would the same workout apply to a 3 hour marathoner? A 4-hour marathoner? A 5-hour marathoner? It didn't seem very likely.

In the next couple of weeks, I decided to check it out I played around with lots of mathematical equations and talked to about 100 runners of widely differing abilities (from a 2:09 marathoner to several well over 4 hours), and darn if the Yasso 800s didn't hold up all the way down the line.

Now, this is a remarkable thing. Anyone who has been running for a few years, and in particular trying to improve his or her marathon time, knows that training theory can get quite complex. You've got pace, you've got pulse, you've got max VO2, you've got lactate threshold, you've got cruise intervals, you've got tempo training, you've got enough gibberish to launch a new line of dictionaries.

And now you've got an easier way: you've got Yasso 800s. Want to run a 3:30 marathon? Then train to run a bunch of 800s in 3:30 each. Between the 800s, jog for the same number of minutes it took you to run your repeats. Training doesn't get any simpler than this, not on this planet or anywhere else in the solar system.

Bart begins running his Yasso 800s a couple of months before his goal marathon. The first week he does four. On each subsequent week, he adds one more until he reaches 10. The last workout of Yasso 800s should be completed at least 10 days before your marathon, and 14 to 17 days would probably be better.

1337hax0r wrote:

I'd say the yasso 800s are only accurate if you've been training for the marathon for a while. I did 8 x 800 yesterday, averaging 2:28 for the first 7, then ran 2:17 for the last one. With that workout, I know I could have averaged 2:27 for 10, though my recovery was 2 minutes. If the recovery would have been 1, it would have been quite a bit slower, I don't know, maybe 2:32 for 10. I'm definitely not in that kind of shape, as I'm really training for the 3200 in track at around 70 mpw.

what can you run for the 3200 or the 5k right now?

see another pattern....write something you know nothing about.Yasso got his information from a wide varity of runners not just recreational runners.Yasso himself is a good runner.I ran 2.41 and 2.43,not fast but also faster than a slow recreational runner.

shuffler wrote:

Last summer I ran 10 x 800 several times averaging 2:20-2:25 with a 1 minute rest.

My marathon PR is 2:52

With that workout, and plenty of distance running, you should at least be under 2:30, easily, and more likely sub 2:25 for sure.

D 1 runner wrote:

$1000 dollars say Geb could run them all about 1:55-1:57 and that just aint gonna happen for a marathon

He can run 12 1/2 of them at 2:06.5 with no rest.