What is the toughest Workout you've ever did?

I've got one workout that is going to be forever etched in my head.

9x1k, with matching time rest, at 3k pace - 2 to 5 seconds. People were tapping out on rep 4 in this workout. I remember thinking I would actually die on rep 6, and I hardly even remember the 7th and 8th rep, but I pr'd for the 1000 on the 9th rep (obviously had a terribly weak pr, I was a 10k guy)

I was dead for like, a week and a half after that. It was stupid to do (in my opinion) but that workout did more in one hour than the rest of my life as far as toughening me up.

For me the toughest ones were the high intensity short recovery intervals.

20 x 200 on a 1:00 cycle per interval. Try to run them around 28-29. The first few go by fine then once you get around to the 9-10th rep it starts getting really tough and the rest seems to be non existent. Not as tough as some that everyone listed, but this one was always a challenge for me!

The toughest workout I ever did was by mistake I think. In one of the earlier editions of Jack Daniels book on training, there was a quality workout three weeks from marathon race day that called for:

2 mile warmup

4 x 1200 at tempo pace

10 mile tempo run

4 x 1200 at tempo pace

2 mile cooldown

In later editions, the 10 mile tempo run was corrected to a 10 mile easy run which makes more sense since this workout was scheduled so close to the marathon.

I once knew of a guy who ran an incredible workout years ago. He and his mentor ran 20x400m all around 62, 63ish. After a long rest the mentor forced him out on 20 more all at the same pace. Completely spent he rested. Then in the dark of the night... he ran twenty more. Closed in a 64 but for 60 400m it was incredible. He peed blood for a week.

How many of these workouts have a sound basis in training and how many are just self torture with no real purpose other than to make you puke?

6 X 5 miles cut down around a hilly state park. NON-Stop! First 5 miles at 6:30--6:15---6:00---5:45---5:30---All Out (5:15 effort).

30 mile day.

andy1564 wrote:

The most impressive workout I've done was 12x800, first 11 at 2:20-2:25, last one in 2:06 all with 2-3' rest. That indicated I might be in sub 4:20 1600 shape, a time I've never hit.

The hardest workouts were short ladders at as close to 800 pace as possible with a 600 at beginning and end--600-400-300-300-600 or so. Of course none of us could run our 800 pace; in 1:57 shape the last 600 was a painful 1:35 or so. That workout hurts.

I have run 4:09 for the 1609 meter race and I could not come close to running that 800 workout. 6 miles at 4:50 pace is intense, after a while the rest does help as much. I could do 4-6x800 meters at 2:18-2:20 with 3 min rest. You may just need to do more racing. I think you could run sub 9 minutes and sub 4:05 with those workouts.

When I was in 4:09 shape, I was runing 6x1000 in 3:00 with 60 sec rest and 16x400 in 69 sec with 60 sec rest. I was also running 5 mile tempo runs in 25:50 and 10 mile tempo runs in 56 minutes.

Two that did me in but for different reasons.

30x200 with 30seconds jog to the next 100 mark. First 10 in 30 sec, the next 10 in 29, next 5 in 28 last 5 sub 27. That was the end of that season. My legs were dead and I did not care if I raced. The coach and I over did it.

Next year as a freshman at University indoors the first week of Jan after 8 weeks of base work. 1200 in 302 5 min recovery 400 in 55. 5 min recovery 400 in 55 and puked for an hour. Never wanted to die that bad in my life.

8X400 wrote:

My toughest workouts all occured before I knew how to train. When I was in high school, I pretty much figured that every rep should be run as fast as possible. This made our weekly 8-10X400 workout pretty painful. My times would look something like: 56, 59, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69. I absolutely dreaded 400 repeat days, but now I realize that I was just turning a run of the mill workout into a painful experience for no reason.

That is too true and its why every high school needs a distance coach to prevent this type of workout. That will kill a kids desire to run.

4X800M in 1:57 with a 3 minute recovery.

10 mile warmup at 6:15 pace

10 mile tempo at 5:14 pace

or

2.7 mile warmup

followed by 15 mile wave run 5x(4:50 mile, 11:10 two mile) with no break

1.7 mile cool down

Easily our traditions tapering workout:

5x 3-2-1's

300m (800 pace)- 200 (400 pace)- 100 (close to all out, all out last 1 or 2). Recovery is what you just ran, besides the 100, where it's 4-5 minutes jogging

A 35K time trial run solo one month before my marathon PR was the hardest workout I ever did.

toughest workout for me mentally:

2 x mile "breakdowns"--a continuous mile where you pick it up 2 seconds every lap, last lap should approximate your mile race pace: 64/62/60/58, full recovery, 64/63/61/59; then 3-4x400 (can't remember how many) around 56-57.

toughest workout physically:

3 x [6x200 (100m rest)/1 lap jog/6x250 (150m rest)]/1 lap jog; basically 36 reps, usually under 30 second pace for 200 (i was never sure, my coach never told us our times)--counting warmup, around 18k of mostly pretty fast trackwork, with nearly 15k being continuous running.

workout i dreaded the most:

3x400, 100% effort, 100% recovery--usually done 10-12 days before championship level meets. i got more nervous before this workout than i did some races, and it made realize i should never envy sprinters for their shorter workouts...

GoHardOrGoHome wrote:

^^ Curious to know what everyone classifies as the toughest workout they've ever done or tried..

Sorry, did not read after page 2-3? Anyhow, to answer your question ... toughest workout? The kind you dread and struggle to complete-- in other words, you feel like your heart is about to come out of your chest, you struggle to breath and your mental psychic wants to quit (whether it be in training or in a race) but instead, you're too stubborn and you complete your goal/task/ workout and still live to tell about it...:)

400m,(200m jog),200m (100m jog), 200m (4-5min) repeat.

Done a little faster then 800m race pace.

My high school coach was pissed that we were horseplaying around with another track team at a meet once, so the next day he made us do 12x400 with 1.5 min rest with 5 lb dumbbells in each hand, all under 70 sec. I got 10 lb dumbbells since I was the one who started the horseplaying. If we didnt make time, we had to do 25 pushups. Needless to say, I did alot of pushups that day. I was much more calmer at meets after this.

6 x 1,000 at mile PR pace. 5 minutes between reps. Had to do (make that "try") that one every Wednesday for about 2 months per outdoor season in college. Managed to hit the times a grand total of one workout during all 4 years. Did it once out of college, too, but I was able to get rested up for it then. It was super, super hard to try that every week in college, only managing 4 reps at pace most weeks before dying exponentially on the last two.

You can obviously make any workout impossibly hard, but being expected beforehand to do something that hard week in and week out two days after a Monday track workout that was almost as hard? That was brutal.

I was training for ultras last summer and did a very hilly 5-hour run last year (northern Wisconsin). I knew it was going to be warm and humid, but I wasn't prepared. It ended up being 109F with the heat index and I was dying. Heat exhaustion definitely set in as I was wobbling, having a hard time focusing, and started to get cold. I didn't have a choice, though, as I was out of water and still far from the car. I finally got back to the car at 4.5 hours and loaded up on water and went back out for another 30 minutes. If I had to do it again, I would've bailed on the workout if I knew how hot it was going to be.