Your opinion on weekly 20x400 with longer recoveries

Most of the physiology I have read seems to lean towards intervals of 2-6 minutes to get the most benefit.

Yes, these are what I do closer to races (4-6 weeks out) - usually 5-6x1000 w/ 3 min recovery.

Jan finally getting a ghost-writer!

runrincerepeat wrote:

Most of the physiology I have read seems to lean towards intervals of 2-6 minutes to get the most benefit.

Read more physiology then. You’ve never heard of Tabata? It’s not the length of the repeats that matters. It’s the duration of the recoveries.

too hot wrote:

It’s not the length of the repeats that matters. It’s the duration of the recoveries.

Keep telling yourself that!

Basically what I want to achieve by including 20x400 every week is to have some not-so-taxing anaerobic running with an additional benefit of upping vo2max as well as endurance a bit during next few months since I am focusing on half-marathon. Somehow I just feel that by not running vo2max workouts last year I have lost some of this ability to "push hard" during shorter races like 3k/5k. So any ideas - is this good enough session for what I want to achieve?

As an alternatives I keep in mind switching from walking rest to slow jogging (active recovery) instead. But if there are no use from such session then perhaps its better to ditch it all the way and go back to JD repetitions?

My other weekly quality session is JD cruise intervals (6xMile in 5:50 down to 5:45).

I think you’re better off doing longer reps, less volume, and a more consistent pace (while keeping your ratio of work to recovery approximately the same). Something like 6 x 800m at 2:35 with two minutes recovery would be a workout that gets you some VO2 max work that you could do every week as a “secondary” effort. (This could be done in a week where the main emphasis is on a tempo run and a fast-finish long run, with an additional secondary effort of either a quality medium-long run or a speed development day.)

If you’re in a part of the cycle where that type of work is going to be your primary emphasis (say, 6 weeks out from a goal 3k-10k race), over a few weeks you could work up to 8 x 1000m with the following sequence:

-7 x 800m @ 2:35 with 2 mins rec

-8 x 800m @ 2:35 with 2 mins rec

-7 x 1000m @ 3:15 with 2:30 rec

-8 x 1000m @ 3:15 with 2:30 rec

This ramp-up would be done while reducing the emphasis on at least one of your other quality days.

That 400m workout could then be done 10-ish days out from your goal race to dial in goal pace (pace, number of reps, and recovery length to be adjusted depending on your goal race distance). It could also be done during a down week during your general prep phase where you still want to touch on VO2, although during a down week I would either break it into two sets of 10 x 400m (4-5 minutes set break) or reduce the total number of 400s to 12-15.

Just saw your post above. I think a great “standard” schedule for someone with your focus could include the following emphasis each week:

-VO2 work (6x 800m workout referenced above, secondary emphasis)

-Cruise intervals (the workout you mentioned above) (main emphasis)

-An easy medium-long run (secondary emphasis)

-A long run with 2-5 miles in the second half at date half marathon pace (main emphasis)

Do 20x400m with 100m rest stumbles @79/80 ... don’t move it down to 74s ...unless you were out of shape running 16:3x.

Your better off doing some kilometres reps like 8 to 10 x 1k with 2 min rest.

Short reps in the 200m to 600m are best to do at mile pace for 4 to 8 reps.

runrincerepeat wrote:

Most of the physiology I have read seems to lean towards intervals of 2-6 minutes to get the most benefit.

You must have missed the part explaining that Intervals are actually the rest periods.

Lurks-a-lot wrote:

Jan finally getting a ghost-writer!

No. The OP is not performing the 20 x 400m interval correct according to best individual pace and recovery.

Libertarian vegan wrote:

Your better off doing some kilometres reps like 8 to 10 x 1k with 2 min rest..

At what pace? If it’s a pace targeted to hit VO2 max improvement (usually 3k-5k pace), that’s a really tough workout for most runners to do weekly unless it’s their primary focus of the week (which it shouldn’t be for more than about 10 weeks out of the year for a runner racing primarily 3k and above, since most distance runners plateau and then fall off after several weeks of heavy VO2 max work).

Now, if it’s at 8k pace, I could see it, but that would make the OP’s two main weekly workouts pretty similar (mile repeats at about 10-mile pace and 1k repeats at about 8k pace).

I’m not saying it’s a bad workout (in fact, in a lot of contexts it’s a good one), but it isn’t the direction I’d point the OP in in this specific case.

Ya ! This is similar to my DOOKIECAN system that produced 9 internalized winning results in 18 monthes . My Kenyon runs 21x440 with individual pace and rest down to 129bpm . It produces high lactate and aerobic mitocondria.

Magic !

Tues kilometres reps

Thurs fartlek

Sat 2 hours steady

+ 8 to 11 additional easy runs

ukathleticscoach wrote:

runrincerepeat wrote:

Most of the physiology I have read seems to lean towards intervals of 2-6 minutes to get the most benefit.

You must have missed the part explaining that Intervals are actually the rest periods.

Seems you got my dilemma here and what you say in this post and above actually makes sense to me.

As I stated my main focus is half-marathon and therefore as you correctly guessed my main emphasis is on 6xMile cruise intervals at 10k pace and the progressive, faster long run.

To clarify, I choose 20x400 with longer recoveries (~70 sec) because I thought it would not be too taxing on my system as running 800 to 1000 intervals (as they usually hit me very hard and I need multiple recovery days afterwards) but would still benefit my vo2max and lactate buffering.

The main question was - would they work as I have planned... The risk is that I am fearing off is that recoveries might be too long and I would not get enough stimulus, so basically I would waste entire session each week. However even worse would be to run too long, too hard and compromise my entire training.

What you are doing wrong in the 20 x400s is that you run them progressive. The purpose with interval workouts is to hold

the pace at an even level, then let the increased effort after more reps to be the right level of pressure.

COACH J.S å ä ö wrote:

Lurks-a-lot wrote:

Jan finally getting a ghost-writer!

No. The OP is not performing the 20 x 400m interval correct according to best individual pace and recovery.

How do you know you've not measured his HR

You need longer reps as was said above.