As the subject says. What are your favorite workouts after a few weeks (or months) off? Specifically when you're still building mileage and regaining aerobic strength and are able to handle workouts beyond easy running and strides but you aren't far enough along to handle your typical mid-season bread-n-butter workouts.
My go to is a broken tempo. Run it at whatever pace feels right -- maybe that's marathon effort versus half marathon effort. Something like 12:00-10:00-8:00 @ T w./ 3:00-4:00 jogging rest after the 12 & 2:00-3:00 after the 10. You're getting in 30:00 of running in a manageable way. I like something like this a lot more than a straight 20:00 tempo. When you're coming back from a layoff I think you have to start with some strength work. Risk of injury goes up & up if you attack shorter/faster reps.
The two staples for me when I'm in that position are the classic 1 minute on/off for however many reps feels right (between 10 and 20) and then for the second workout (which really isn't a workout) I do 1 mile warm-up followed by 6-8 miles at 90% of marathon pace. Three weeks of that and I'll go to two proper workouts each week
1 minute on/1 minute x 8-16 x 10k effort (start at the lower end of the range)
1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 minutes on/1 minute off at tempo effort (can be shortened without the 5, or even without the 5 and one of the 4 minute “on” workouts, to start)
3-5 x long hill/short hill (run up a 90s-2 minute hill at 10k effort, slowly jog back down 20-30 seconds, then run up the segment you just walked back down hard, then slowly jog back down the whole long hill segment; definitely start at the low end of this range)
My go-tos have been shorter straight tempos starting at 12-15' depending on how horrid of shape I'm in and progressing over a few weeks to 25' and alternating with 200m hills at 3k effort starting from 8ish reps progressing to 2x8. The Tempos give way to all sorts of different workouts once I'm in shape, and the 2x8x200m hills becomes a staple that a throw in every few weeks.
I've gotten kind of bored of starting all my builds the same way, so I'm curious what other people do.
Best shape I ever got in I was starting my season by running running 2 tempos a week, a faster one followed by flat 200s, a marathon paced one followed by 200m hills at 3k, one day of max Velocity flat sprints with some easy running, one day of 20 sesond hill sprints with easy running, a hilly long run, and two days of lifting with easy running. In just 5 weeks I Ran a massive 5k PR but ended with my achilles in shambles (unsurprisingly). I still wonder if a toned down version of this is the way to go.
I like hitting 4 light workouts over 2 weeks that touch on everything.
1. 400s at threshold, about 2:1 rest. This is a solid way to reintroduce this pace without straining.
2. 300s at 10k or 200s at 5k, 1:2 rest. Goal is to be completely recovered for each new one and get comfortable running fast again
3. 100s at mile, full recovery
4. 4-6 miler at 90% of steady
I like the minute on/off stuff if the longer tempo seems daunting provided the paces are kept in check. Could start with that & work the paces from threshold to ~10k. Then go for a tempo for something with a little more volume.