You already know me too well. Totally not fair.

I just happened to be looking at this thread from last year that hasn’t been commented on since November 08. But in regard to the workout…10x800…that’s one tough workout. Five miles worth of speed work. One of the toughest workouts I did on the h.s. track team was the day we did something like 20 to 24x440. Let me tell ya…anything over 3 miles of speed work is loathsome. But an important thing to consider when doing track workouts is not necessarily the number of intervals or their distance, but the amount of recovery between each interval. I didn’t read the article so I don’t know if it mentions that. But if you rested an hour between each 800 then it’d be pretty easy to make the 2:55 (m:ss) target time on each of them. It might take you all day, but is that going to help you to run the 2:55 (h:mm)marathon? On the other hand, if you run them with only a 2 or 3 minute recovery the 2:55 (m:ss)800 target time becomes much more difficult to make. When you can hit the target times with the shorter recovery that’s when you’re more likely to be within the grasp of a 2:55 (h:mm) marathon. You see what I’m getting at…

Dan

OH WHATEVER JOE!!!!!!!!!! Look how history changes. LOL

I'm so sensitive...please just leave me alone.

Dan -- you are so right.... I am not sure if I could consistantly hit a 2:55.
I do a smaller scale speed work --- 4x400 with 4 min rest. and to get a 1:30 after the second one is tough for me.
I also do another version on a decent hill near my house --- up hill for about 45 seconds -- all out. then walk back down backwards, once I hit the start again I go..... killer.

In the book THE PERFECT MILE it describes Roger Bannister’s training regime when he began his conquest on breaking 4-minutes for the mile. He took the same sort of approach…reducing the recovery between intervals instead of increasing the number of intervals.

By the way, if you have any interest at all in track running, that is an awesome book. It’s not a “how to” book, or training manual. It’s a historical account of how the three runners likely of accomplishing the feat approached the task. I suggest it for any runner.

Dan

I'll have to check it out.

There is a passage in the book that I found kind of interesting. For several minutes after the announcement of Bannister’s sub-four minute mile, the crowd didn’t know “exactly” what his time was; only that he broke four minutes. The stadium announcement was:

"Ladies and gentlemen, here is the result of event 9, the one-mile: 1st, No. 41, R.G. Bannister, Amateur Athletic Association and formerly of Exeter and Merton Colleges, Oxford, with a time which is a new meeting and track record, and which - subject to ratification - will be a new English Native, British National, All-Comers, European, British Empire, and World Record. The time was 3..."

When the announcer said “3” it confirmed to the crowd that they had just witnessed the first sub-4 minute mile and they instantly broke into a loud roar that lasted several minutes and that drowned out the rest of the announcement. Bannister's time was 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.

Dan