Cam Levin's, 12 times 1k, 2:45, 1 min rest, NYC, prep

What surprises me about Cam is that he's been running high mileage for more than a decade without apparent ill effect.

He’s had some major down’s, after joining NOP his health and fitness took a huge hit. It took him awhile to compete at a high level, but he got rolling again. That’s why he got dropped by Nike and was unsponsored for a bit.

Dude is an animal though. Lots of intrinsic motivation to be able to run that mileage for so long. I hope he can execute on the day and run stupid fast. He’s an inspiration for sure and is a great role model, super humble.

Yeah, I'm pulling for him to be first in Central Park---and the finish line;) Really looking forward to watching the race and hope they have decent weather. Thanks for posting Ghost1

For over 50 years, we have seen monster workouts a week or two before a big race.

What is the upside of doing a monster workout a couple weeks before a Big Six Marathon? What is the upside of telling the world? K Kiptum may want to tell the world if he does a monster workout, intimidate the competition.

If a Thoroughbred trainer had one or more horses doing monster workouts shortly before big races, Thoroughbred trainer would be in trouble, big trouble.

This is a pretty normal workout and exactly what he should be doing a few weeks out - it's 12K of work with rest slower than his 10,000m pace.

We'll see.

Steve Prefontaine did (3 or 4) x 1mi., about (4:00 to 4:05), with long recovery in Munich several days before 5000m.

Pretty standard also.

I with you on this one. I’m a big Cam Levins fan and really want to see him do well in NYC.

how often though do we see these monsters workouts from pro marathoners that actually end up performing well on the actual race? It’s different if you’re a mid distance runner like Centro and doing some crazy Salazar workout before a big race. A big effort for a marathoner too close to race can burn them, more often than not.

And he ran very well there.

I meant to downvote this, but Letsrun doesn't let you change your vote.

As for the workout, it's 12k at just faster than his LT pace. Hardly a crazy workout for a guy with his speed and training volume.

Now if he had done 21*1k in 2:45, I'd have a different opinion.

isn't 12 reps a lot?

is one minute a normal recovery time for a 1k workout?

I’m not seeing this as that big of a workout for a guy as fit as him. Decades ago, a standard so for our group was 8 x 1600 with minute rests (so, basically the same thing, just with fewer rests). Our pace would typically be 10k + 5-10secs, and we’d cut down to close to 10k pace. This workout did not feel that hard (MUCH easier than the 5-6 miles at 5-8k race pace that we’d do in college). So, I’m not too worried about him getting burnt by this.

He'll be competitive in NYC, but I predict he won't win. There are some surprises out there. Watch this space.

Isn't 2:40 to 2:51 a really large variation across the 12?

This is a threshold session for an international class athlete. Nothing bonkers about it.

Take it easy, boomers. This is 13:45 pace for 5k- not even 10k race pace. The world has moved on from the 13:20 that used to win championship era that you’re used to.

Seems more like a workout for a mile race than a marathon?

I think he was more or less a pace bunny for Galen.

I think the idea is to be able to roll with the surges. Cam said a couple years ago that the surges broke him and we wanted to fix it. He's looking for things to strengthen his toolbox. I imagine there's also some "moderate hills" in there as he's looking to get ready for the course.

Exactly nothing impressive about the workout.