8x1000 1'30"rec.

It's track season! What are you doing this workout for? Ok,

Well...I'll assume you are doing a 5k on the track.

That's a long workout with limited recovery, so if you can do it at 5k pace or faster than you're 5k time is too slow for your current fitness. It's still somewhat early in the season so if you plan to peak soon then don't even do this workout. If it's a strength building workout, which based on the recovery it looks like, you should (or I would) start out at 10k pace for the first 3 or 4.

For 4 to 6 if you feel good you'll probably have started to drop the pace.

In theory you should just finish the workout slightly faster than you started, but if you're 10k pace was too slow you might have alot left for the last two.

You could run the 6 or 7th at 5k pace and see what you left the 8th one.

You can go ahead and ignore everything I said though since the only time I did this workout my pace ranged from 4:00 k to 3:06.

This is an excellent workout any time of year. A number of coaches extol the virtues of 10k pace, or 'cruise', intervals as a staple every week. It is said to improve stamina, vVO2Max, lactate clearance, and encourage good running mechanics, without being too harsh. Generally, you would aim to get the jog recovery down to around 30% of the rep time (around 200m probably). If you have a recent 3 or 5k time, plug it into the McMillan calculator to get an estimate of 10k pace (cruise intervals).

As you get closer to your peak racing time, you can do blended workouts. Start with some 10k reps, do some 5k pace reps, and finish off with some 3k pace work. Of course, if you are racing MD and want to introduce even faster training paces, you can go on to do 10k, 3k, 1500 pace blends, or 10, 1500, 800 etc.

As fast as you can. If you don't work hard during workouts, you won't get faster. Simple as that.

You should be able to run about 5k pace for that workout.

10k pace only.

John Madden wrote:

As fast as you can. If you don't work hard during workouts, you won't get faster. Simple as that.

exactly. As my kid's HS coach says, go out really hard, don't be comfortable, and then just try to hang on for the workout- better to do the first few reps really fast and die than try to run an even pace. Race your teammates. Do this Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

For a strength/stamina building workout that you would regularly include in your training, go somewhere around 10k pace (or go 10-12 seconds per K slower than 5k pace.

If your fitness level is already high and you are trying to bring about peak fitness (say you are 6 weeks out from goal race and want to get some race effort simulation) then try to run the whole thing at 5k pace. Don't try to go at 5k pace unless you are already pretty fit, though.

As I've said before, I think this workout (or 6-7 of them) is an excellent replacement for a long run for a speed type middle distance runner. Those who can run a good 800 but hate the long slog of a 60-75 minute run, can do cruise intervals instead. Doing them once a week gives them enough aerobic endurance to run for 2 minutes or less IMHO. It also means they're never running slower than about 5km pace (or maybe 7km pace - I've always thought this worout is done at somewhere between 5km and 10km pace depending on the person and other factors).