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One of the most popular marathon training workouts seems to be Yasso 800s. Running coach Bart Yasso developed this workout, which is supposed to predict your marathon finish time. It’s a simple workout: after a warm up, you run 10 x 800 meters as fast as you can while maintaining the same pace for each repeat. Your average time in minutes and seconds should predict your marathon finish time in hours and minutes. So if I went out and ran 10 x 800 meters in an average time of 3 minutes and 30 seconds, then theoretically I would be in the shape to run a 3:30 marathon. If you added Yasso 800s to your training, you would run them in every week and begin with 4-5 Yassos and build up to 10 throughout your training cycle.
Now, Bart Yasso is an incredibly gifted runner and intelligent person who knows significantly more than I do about marathons and running, so I by no means am bashing him or the Yasso 800s. However, in the limited time of marathon training, you may want to focus on different workouts than Yasso 800s, especially as you approach the final few weeks before your race. Why?
Yasso 800s are Not Marathon Specific Workouts
Many runners swear by Yasso 800s, while others find that Yassos predict a time 5-10 minutes faster than their finish time. Why is this? First off, each runner is gifted with a different percentage of fast twitch and slow twitch muscles. Runners with more slow twitch muscles are excellent distance runners and can sustain a moderate pace for a long time, while those with more fast twitch muscles can push themselves hard and fast for a short amount of time. That’s why some runners can run a 3:30 marathon yet struggle to break 20 minutes in the 5K, while others can easily run sub-20 minute 5Ks without getting close to the 3:30 marathon barrier. Runners with more fast twitch muscles are likely to do really well at Yassos but then not perform according to their prediction come marathon race day.
Beyond this, 800 repeats are simply a different physiological demand than the marathon. Even a long speed session such as 10 x 800 requires speed, not endurance; you can blaze through 10 repeats of half a mile but not have the endurance necessary to run a fast marathon. Nor do Yasso 800s train you for the specific demands of the marathon, as this Runners Connect article explains.
Are you doing the right workouts for your marathon training? via @thisrunrecipes #fitfluential…
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Marathon Specific Workouts
One of the primary rules of race training is the law of specificity. Your training should be tailored towards the specific physiological demands of your event. If you’re running a 5K or 10K, which are 10-15% anaerobic, you must develop both your aerobic and anaerobic fitness. This can be done through VO2max speed workouts such as 200, 400, 800, and 1600 meter repeats at 5K pace or faster.
The marathon, however, is almost a completely aerobic event. It is, after all, a true endurance race, rather than a near-sprint effort as the 5K is. While speed work does play a role in marathon training, it should not be the primary focus of your workouts. To run your best time at the marathon, you need to train specifically to build your endurance and what the famous running coach Renato Canova refers to as “extended specific endurance training:” workouts devoted to holding a moderately hard pace for an extended period of time. Canova and the Hansons both include shorter repeats early in their training, but as the race approaches, the workouts become more specific to the demands of the marathon.
So what are some marathon specific workouts? Think long: long intervals, long runs with fast finishes, long steady state/marathon pace runs.These workouts will build your marathon specific speed, increase your endurance, and, most of all, mentally prepare you for the demands of the marathon.
Fast Finish Long Runs: This variation on the traditional long run will optimally prepare you for the marathon-specific demand of running on tired legs (they’re also a great workout for half marathoners!). Fast finish long runs are performed exactly how they sound: you finish your long run at a fast pace, in the range of half marathon to marathon pace. For example, if you’re headed out for an 18 mile long run, begin at an easy and conversational pace for the first 10 miles, and then pick up the pace to marathon pace or slightly faster for the final 8 miles.
Long Marathon Pace Runs: Many of the great marathon coaches—Hansons, Pfitzinger, Canova—incorporate long runs at marathon pace in the last few weeks of their training. The Hansons Marathon Method, for example, builds you up to 10 miles at goal marathon pace, and Pfitzinger’s 18/70 plan peaks at a 17 mile run with 14 miles at marathon pace. Marathon pace runs (also known as steady state runs) will physiologically prepare you for the precise demands of the marathon, namely, holding a moderately hard pace for an extended period of time. These runs teach you not to go out too fast and how to maintain your pace when fatigue sets in.
Long Repeats: One of the rules of Canova’s extended specific endurance training is that all track workouts render physiological adaptations that are directly transferable to the marathon. The length of your speed intervals should directly correspond to the length of your goal race: short intervals for 5Ks and 10Ks, long intervals for the marathon and half marathon. The Hansons Marathon Method devotes the final 8 weeks of training to what they call strength workouts: long intervals of 1-3 miles at approximately half marathon effort. The volume of these intervals is high as well, totaling 6 miles of hard running. An example of long interval workouts is 2 x 3 miles at half marathon effort, with enough warm up and cool down to total 10-12 miles. Yes, Yasso 800s do equal 5 miles of hard work, but it’s the duration of the individual intervals and the pace of each interval that matter. Longer intervals done closer to marathon pace are much more specific than shorter intervals at 5K pace.
Fasted Long Runs: Coach and sports nutritionist Matt Fitzgerald suggests this long run for marathoners and half marathoners in his book The New Rules of Marathon and Half Marathon Nutrition. Relying too heavily on supplemented carbohydrates during all of your long runs will improve your fat-burning capacity, which in turn will make you a more efficient endurance runner and less likely to hit the wall on race day. Fitzgerald suggests doing half of your long runs in the hour to two hour range (so 7 to 16 miles for most runners) without any carbohydrates during the run. There are a few other approaches to the depletion long run, including not eating before or taking fuel only after a certain point on very long runs, which you can read about here and here.
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Questions of the Day:
Have you done Yasso 800s before? How did they work for you?
What race specific workouts do you include in your training?
Have you ever done fasted long runs?
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