Favorite “return to workout” workout

I do a very similar workout in Philly. 1mi tempo on the Schuylkill river trail from Lloyd hall (behind the art museum), about 2-3min jog recovery getting up to the boxers trail (a hilly gravel path that's about a mile long), "hill fartlek" out and back where you surge the uphills and float the flat/down, jog back down to the SRT, and another tempo mile back to Lloyd hall. One of my favs especially because the boxers trail is so fun to run on

I think the idea is to run faster during the shorter segments, because they are shorter and you know you're almost done. Like a Mona fartlek, the last reps are only 15s but definitely the hardest. At least that's what Brad Hudson suggests in his book about fartlek ladders, and what I assumed most people would do intuitively...

200m on, 200m off

Done at a speed that feels moderately fast. I don't worry about the splits or average pace. I do as many as feels right.

I did this today, in fact, as my first non-workout workout, after a marathon 11 days ago.
It ended up being 12 x 200. I felt terrible yesterday, but feel much better today after doing this.

After jogging for that long i am craving a tempo. That Comfortably Fast pace is such a great feeling after weeks of jogging. Just cruising along on your favorite route passing by familiar sights. I like doing it as 800m cruise intervals to stretch it out further and be able to asses how i feel during the short&moderate rest periods.

A 3 mile tempo run at 5:45 pace is my way of getting my legs moving again when I haven't worked out in a while. Been doing this for almost 7 years now.

As someone coming off a layoff I liked progressive runs. You get warmed up at EZ pace, maintain a steady pace throughout, then notch it down at the end and feel good. I started off after a layoff with 5 miles EZ, with the last 2 progressing faster but no particular goal time. This is done once a week.

On the Saturday LRs, I built up to a 10, but 8 EZ progressing to 2 faster (not necessarily GMP but faster miles to get the legs safely used to speed).

Later into a block the best MP workout for me is 15 EZ and 5 @ MP, progressing to 12/8 in one of my 20s.

My favorite is a classic threshold fartlek. 8-10 by 3' on, 2' off. The two minutes rest is fairly generous and it's very easy to gauge effort levels. When I'm at my peak I'll run the pick-ups at 5:00 down to 4:40 mile pace with only one minute of rest, but when coming back from a break I'll typically run them ranging from 5:35 down to 5:15 mile pace.

If its due to injury, the suggestions here about running 200 repeats and hills and 3mile tempos right from the gun are utterly insane. PT recs are usually a variation of running for 1 minute! then a walk, the 2 minutes then walk etc...building each week and a day off between. xtrain all you want. Details can be found at numerous (all) sports med websites by googling "return to running protocol". They are conservative but they are assuming a stress fracture, surgery, Achilles tendinitis.... Now if you were just resting and getting back into it, thats different.

Some freestyle Fartlek is a pretty good option

Easy run with 1-2 min pickups. Unlimited jogging in between.

Strides with full recovery.

You should teach muscle fibers to run fast again before you start doing hard workouts.

Light Progression Run with last mile or 2 at tempo pace

8 x 200 at mile pace, long rest (3-4 min)

8 x 3 min On at Tempo, 1 min Jog

10, 8, 6, 4, 2 min, with 2 min jog between reps. Start at tempo, end at 5k pace.

Four workouts, ideally in this order.

My go to workouts in this context are:

a) 10 - 16 x diagonals on a soccer field with a slow jog recovery to the opposite diagonal.

b) A fartlek: 0:15/0:30/0:45/1:00/1:30/2:00/1:30/1:00/0:45/0:30/0:15 and back down the ladder with equal recovery.

c) 10 x 20-30s hill repeats with a gentle jog/walk recovery.