Rest between intervals?

It all depends on what the purpose of the workout is.

I agree with the former poster, it all depends on the workout. However, in general, I would recomend the following:

1. For early season workouts (such as the transition from base to workout mode) after base training I recomend taking a full recovery between intervals. I can't give you an amount of time or distance for this. Everyone is different, and it will be different on different days, and it will be different after every interval. I use a heart rate monitor to guide me. Some people will have to walk to get their heart down, others will be able to job/run slow.

2. As the season goes foward, take away rest time and increase speed and intensity both while decreasing interval distance and increasing interval distance (your 4 X 800's @ 2:30 from early in the season might become your 5 X 1600m @ 4:50).

OR

your early season 6 X 400 at 72 might look like this later on: 2 X 100m at 14; 2 X 200 @ 28; 4 X 100 at 35/30; 2 X 200 @ 26; 1 X 100 all out. Then 15 minutes of explosive drills.

And for those of you who judge by PR's - 16:01 5K, 27:31 8K-XC. I didn't run last spring and gained 20 pounds of beer gut. I just started running again last week and am now slogging along at about 8 min/mile.

I'm a new women's coach, and have had some recent success with my girls this past season. for our workouts, in the beginning of the season, we would do minimal rest. towards the end of the season, we took more rest, because the intensity was higher.

for you, if you're going to run 5-7x mile, i'd recomend running slightly off of race pace (maby 10-15 seconds) and taking 3 minutes recovery for the first few weeks of the season. about 3 weeks before your conference race, when you are gearing up for the regional meet, you'll want to run maybe 5x mile closer to race pace with 5 min recovery.

if you are doing 400's, take about 1 min recovery (or 100m jog). if you're doing hill repeats, just jog back down to the bottom of the hill. today, i ran 12x400m uphill averaging 71's, and jogged easy on the way back down, and it took about 1:55 to get to the starting line. i took the extra 5 seconds to make it an even 2 minutes...and i wanted the extra rest too.

i know many college XC runners do 4 x 1600 with 1 min. rest, all on a track.

as for more track/conditioning based training, i know some do a 40-min run in the morning (easy pace i think), then do 1000 or 2000 repeats in the evening. 6x1000 with 2:30 rest, or 3x2000 with 10mins. rest.

i dont know if these are the best, but i know maybe good runners and coaches who recommended these workouts.

Like the others said, it depends on the goal of your workout.

If you want to increase your lactate threshold, then your rest should be 50-80% of your run time (e.g., 1600s in 6 mins, then rest 3-5mins. Early in the season, the rest may be on the long side. As you progress, decrease the rest and jog the rest period.

If your goal is to increase leg speed, then do shorter intervals and more rest; like 12x200 at 30secs with 30secs rest.

*adjust times to suit your ability.

I will emphasize though, if you want to improve LT, then you don't want to, nor should you, run your intervals too hard. Sure, you can go brag about your awesome workout, but you won't get the same benefit as the guy who did the same workout but at the right pace.

In our intervals, which are usually 5-7x1000-1600, the runners recover until their HR is down to approximately 120 bpm, then they go again.

The first interval is done as a group, then the rest of the intervals are done in smaller groups as each person recovers at a different time.

We use this method for shorter intervals (400-800) as well. Also, all of our intervals are done on grass or trails, never on the track. XC isn't run on tracks, so why do intervals on them?