Working Yasso 800's into Your Marathon Speed Work

I was at the Chicago Marathon last weekend.  While the weather was warm, I would have been happy with my 3:16 in perfect weather.  While I was there, I met Bart Yasso (Chief Running Officer of Runner’s World).  On the spot I bought his book, “My life on the run,” and had been reading it on my return to Fort Worth.  I had heard of Yasso 800, but have never made them part of my training plans.  Here’s the basic concept:

 

You run 10 - 800 meter intervals with 400 meter breaks in between.  The Yasso pace you can maintain predicts your marathon finish for all levels of runners with some adjustments for heat and terrain.  So, if you can do 10 – 800 meter intervals at 3:15 each, your projected your projected marathon finishing time is 3 hours, 15 minutes.  If you can run 10 at a 3:30 pace, you should finish your marathon in 3 hours, thirty minutes. No one has ever been able to create a mathematical formula for this, but it seems to work with a wide range of runners.

 

So, tomorrow I will be in Austin in my second week of recovery from Chicago. I will do 6 – 800’s at 3:15 and see if three weeks from now if I am doing 10 at 3:15.  That would be my goal for Houston.  If I can get to 3:10, this my be the litmus test for my current level of conditioning.  

 

If you have tried Yasso 800’s, let me know what you think.