What is the toughest Workout you've ever did?

3 x running up a big hill. I was puking after rep one.

800 meters of lunge walkes, 2 mile run, next day meet 2 800s(relay n open) 200 and 400 not a workout but it was training through the meet and was tough as eff

Very nice indeed! I was hoping someone would throw this one up.

I think the answer depends on one's ability and current fitness. In highschool I remember not being able to finish my first interval session because it was too tough. At TCU my freshman year I recall DNFing a few workouts on the campus golf course on torrid August afternoons. Later on when I ran for the Air Force, my coach had me roll through 20 X 300 workouts that made my head explode. And now in my 4th decade of competing, there are days when training events are flat out 'the toughest workouts' I'm currently doing. I'm sure that later on down the line, I'll have days where I will just barely make it through the workouts.

2 mi WU, 8x400m/200 Rjog ~ 2x800m/200 Rjog ~ 1x1600m/400m Rjog ~ 2x800m/200 Rjog ~ 8x400m/200 Rjog. 2 mi Cool Down. All @ 5k pace.

The other toughest workout was 5 X a very steep 1/2 mile hill.

We did a 10 mile warm up then a 5k at our current 1500 PR then a 5 mile cool down! Man was I tired....

York HS in the 90s we used to run 25x400 with a 1-min standing interval on Monday mornings in the summer. The interval was not really adequate time to recover, so my heart rate was constantly elevated. It being the summer, the heat made certain days that much worse.

Also remember running a ladder workout during track season that went something like 3x1200-800-600-400. What made it tough was that it was a really windy April day in the 40s, where the wind felt like it was circling the track. I don't feel like I have ever maxed out my heart rate as much as I did running intervals on the track on windy days.

Special mention goes to 12x800 on the old 133 yard basement asphalt indoor track during early February when I wasn't yet fit from the winter layoff.

24x200m @ 30 seconds with 30 seconds recovery

pregunta wrote:

What was your mile/1500/5k pr at the time?

4:06.9/3:52/14:19

2ks at race pace on the track with 1 minute of recovery 10 plus was like varsity standards though sometimes you could take a bit more rest after about halfway or so

[quote]billy mcgrath wrote:

This thread is pointless...the focus should be: what work outs did you do that you thought bumped you up toward PR's......I was not a workout all american like so many runners i knew, but still managed to run 14:00.96 and 29:01

after many 5200 mile years........[quote]

Amen. I hope every high school coach in the country reads this thread so they have a list of workouts to never, ever do.

This is dwarfed by many of the workouts on here, but in a relatively flat town my high school XC team heads to a large hill loop and does 5x mile on it, top guys averaging around 5:0X. It was a pretty nasty workout, produced the most casualties of any workout throughout the year.

Sweet Nell Fenwick wrote:

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.

That sounds awful. 400s at mile pace suck. 1000s would be really painful.

CallingBSonAllofYou wrote:

We did a 10 mile warm up then a 5k at our current 1500 PR then a 5 mile cool down! Man was I tired....

What?

The 4 Minute Mile in 5 Minutes...4 x 400 @ 60 with :20 rest

Hardest one for me (so far) has been 4x800 in 2:12 60 seconds between reps. 5 min. rest.

6x400 in 59-60, 60 seconds between reps 5 min rest.

8x200 in 29-30, 30 seconds rest between.

3 mile warm up

2 mile cool down

In the morning: 10 x mile on hilly course @ 4:45. 400 meter float rest @ 6:00 pace. Followed by 4x200 @ 28-29

Then in the afternoon: 6 mile tempo @ 5:00, again hilly course. Then jogged over to the track and did alternating 2k's and ~300 meter hills. 2k's @ 5:45.

Then did a long run of 22 miles the next day, took it easy though.

6:30 am outside temperature 7 degrees and windy. Bed warm and cozy. 10 miles easy.

We picked a nearby mountain with an auto road that had a 1,400 ft verticle rise. We ran up and down 5 times. The run up was at a 5k effort. Found out later on the workout was 23 miles.