Does this Workout make sense? Or was my coach making things up

Sounds like a hard workout for someone of your ability. Is your complaint that your intervals were to short?

Tough, but a good 5K/10K workout. Trains you at pace, keeps you at threashhold.

heh? wrote:

Ok so we had this workout yesterday and im not sure what the hell he was thinking. Maybe making it up as he went along?

11 x 400 around 8k and 5k pace on a 1:40 send off (thats like 20 - 22 seconds rest)

then about 2 minutes rest

6 x 400 between 3k and 5k pace on a 1:50 send off (32 - 34 rest)

another 2 minutes rest

4 x 400 at around 3k to mile pace on a 2:00 cycle

what do you think. Im mostly traing for 5k and 10k.

Man that rest looks really short for a VO2 workout. Were you actually able to run your 5K-8K pace on those 400s with that amount of rest, or were you over pace? I suppose if you could actually complete that workout as scheduled (it looks freaking tough with that little amount of rest) and not get way off pace then it's just one super tough VO2 workout.

Personally for a 5-10K guy I think more traditional stuff like Cruise Interval miles, and 8 mile threshold runs are more the bread and butter. But maybe your coach is trying to give you something different to mix things up a bit and keep your training challenging and interesting. It's okay to try new workouts too.

... That's my two cents at least.

well I held it pretty well. I run about a 16:30 5k. so the first 11 were between mostly 79 and 81. second set of 6 was around mostly 78. Then the last four were around 77 down to 74. It was pretty tough, but not out of control.

heh? wrote:

well I held it pretty well. I run about a 16:30 5k. so the first 11 were between mostly 79 and 81. second set of 6 was around mostly 78. Then the last four were around 77 down to 74. It was pretty tough, but not out of control.

Yeah, I say it sounds like a pretty good workout then.

Again, I think this probably more of a "let's shake things up and do something different" type of workout to keep you from getting bored and attack training differently than doing 1000s and 1200s every week in practice. Probably something good to do a couple times in a season. But I'm more a believer in the tried and true steady/threshold runs for 10K guys rather than crazy VO2 400m workouts.

But hey do whatever gets you to run fast without getting injured!

I think too little rest, too much like a race. Better to save the racing for an actual race.

That is actually a very good Vo2 max workout.

It sounds like a good workout for you. Those 79-81s would be really easy for me, but I don't know how you took them. If it wasn't a burn-out for you, then I'd say you're in good shape.

Yea they felt pretty easy but the short rest starts to catch up eventually.

my legs feel a bit fresher too compared to when we do longer intervals at the same pace but with longer rest