If you want to run faster, the real key is Speedwork!
Carlie: Alright, we're here with Runnin Bout! I feel like my intro is like ALRIGHT! OK! Yes!
Corey: It was really, it really is.
Carlie: We're here everyone, take note!
Corey: Geez, this is episode what, 3?
Carlie: Well, I hate to break it to you but it's actually four.
Corey: Good God.
Carlie: There were two without you, sorry.
Corey: Sorry. So, welcome to episode number four. I'm Corey, this is Carlie.
Carlie: Yes….
Corey: That was your line.
Carlie: Yes! Remember you can listen to Runnin Bout on iTunes or stream it on any of your favorite podcast listening platforms. It's also on the website carlierunsbarbados.com. We have a whole blog that goes along with these wonderful episodes where we take out the key takeaways, hopefully, there are some for every topic that we have. We have some nuggets of information that you can take with you for life and not just running nonsense but nothing too bad about just running nonsense. So… we’ll be chatting for the next, what 30 minutes or so?
Corey: Yes, here it goes.
Carlie: Cool.
Corey: So, what are we talking about?
Carlie: We're talking speed work today. The most painful, the most agonizing, belly burning….
Corey: So, we're talking about speed work, we're talking about a couple of things. One, running faster than usual. We all run fast anyway. Right, we all run fast but with speedwork, you're looking at being strategically faster. And generally, when we use the term because it's an umbrella term for different types of workouts, on the very basic end we're talking about interval training, tempo runs for distance and fartlek, those are the basics. And then you've got some other stuff that you toss in around that, we will touch on that as we get further along. So, let's begin at the beginning.
Carlie: Man, I love speed work so much.
Corey: Said no one ever.
Carlie: No, I really do like it, I love being able to dig into that as I said, it's the belly burning. It's being able to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Corey: Right, yes. So, you're learning it will hurt for an extended period of time. And so, the science is behind it. What you're doing is you're trying to teach your body how to handle running at a faster pace. But we normally just say you know what go there and run 10 minutes faster for your next 5 K or 10 K or what you're going to do you're going to break it down into, in the case of interval training, interval sessions. You're going to break that down, so how that would usually look, say we're doing something like ten 400-meter repeats.
Carlie: Delicious.
Corey: That's a kind of like a bread and butter workout, ten 400-meter repeats. And if you just do the raw math, that adds up to 4 K. So, you're doing 5 K training, you want to be doing this kind of work for 4 K and the rest of it is recovery. So, how this would look is, you're trying to run the same pace that you wouldn't normally be able to hold for the duration. You're trying to run this only full 400 meters, and you're going to do that 10 times. And what you want to do your goal for a workout like this is to be able to maintain that same pace for all 10, plus or minus like two seconds.
Carlie: Let's just say on the last one you know you minus two seconds because that's the one where you kill yourself trying to get to the finish. But yeah, it should be more of an even, you want to finish the workout, so you don't want to run too fast. Is there such a thing as too fast?
Corey: Oh yes. You know if you die at like at lap number 4 you think you went a little too hard.
Carlie: Yeah, I think.
Corey: So, that's intervals.
Carlie: Yes, so intervals will be shorter, like anything from a 200 meter or up to 1200 meters.
Corey: Correct.
Carlie: And you'll be doing a number of those like repetitions, about ten, eight, twenty, maybe.
Corey: And it really depends on the race that you're doing. 20 just...
Carlie: Sounds delightful huh? The most 400s I've ever done I think was like 24.
Corey: Twenty-five.
Carlie: That was like one time. Oh, so you're one up-ing me? You basically tried to one-up me I could have just said any number.
Corey: No, it was your workout. I remember it because we were supposed to do it together and Ralph showed up. I left with the plan that I'm doing 10, Ralph shows up and says, ok guys, we're doing 25 400s I said I'm out.
Carlie: You tapped out one time, huh? That's the smart thing to do.
Corey: Yeah.
Carlie: Nowadays I'll do like that's unusual, I would not do so many. Nowadays, it's between 12 and maybe 15 usually if it's 400s. Obviously, if you're doing mile repeats you do five of them then it equals that you've done 20 laps which is 24 400s but it's not a 400 workout.
Corey: The difference though, it really depends on what kind of workout, what kind of race you're getting ready for because doing 200-meter repeats for a half marathon doesn't really translate. That would be something when you're going a bit faster, a bit shorter so you can use like 200 or 400-meter repeats when training for a 5 K. You're looking at 10 K you can up that to 800-meter repeats even going to want those repeats. 1200-meter repeats and mile repeats we're looking at half marathon and full marathon.
Carlie: Yeah, I hate those. Full disclosure, I don't like mile repeats and those kinds of longer repeats. I much prefer 200s and 400s I love 200s. It's so fun.
Corey: Oh yeah. The first time I ever did mile repeats I thought that it felt like running on a hamster wheel. We were doing a lot of laps, so we were running around in a circle and this was mind-numbing. You're passing the same tree.
Carlie: Yeah right.
Corey: Yeah ok so that's intervals.
Carlie: So, intervals or repetitions tend to be shorter and you do anywhere from like 8 maybe to maybe 20 if you're doing 200s. But usually, between 8 and about 12, intervals and repetitions shorter and you probably have a shorter also break in between. Your recovery break would be probably like a minute, 30 seconds, 20 seconds.
Corey: Yeah, I like to start with like an even split between your work to rest ratio. So, say you're doing your interval at say 2 minutes, I'll start as a beginner with a 2-minute rest. So, you can just be walking or whatever and then we'll progress that down to like a minute or so. And then over time then you kind of take it away altogether, but we'll talk about that a little bit.
Carlie: Yeah. I love when you get a recovery that is like not active, so you can just stand in one place and catch your breath rather than having to jog and stuff which kind of takes us, I think, into threshold running. That kind of speed work which is so different from intervals and repetitions which is like bang bang bang bang bang. Threshold now.
Corey: So, with threshold running, first, we're going to talk about what a threshold is. So, we talked about tempo running so when talking tempo, we talking threshold running. In general, we're looking at your lactate threshold, and that is basic explanation what is the fastest that you can run, and your body still is able to flush the lactate out of your muscles over a continuous basis. Think of it like this, if your boat was filling with water and you're baling the water out.
Carlie: I like this because it paints it so perfectly.
Corey: Right. So, if water gets into your boat you can just scoop it out and toss it with a bucket then that's cool, you can keep going for a very long time. If the boat is filling at a rate faster than you can dump the water out of your boat, then you've got a real problem.
Carlie: You're going too fast, people. You need to slow down a bit.
Corey: Right, so that makes it really, really visual. So, you're literally trying to dump the pain, the lactic acid out of your body at a rate that is at least, at the most, equal to the rate it's building. So, we're looking at longer sessions, so in the intervals we're talking about probably accumulating near 4000 meters for a 5 K. In the tempo run, you're doing your lactic threshold training, what you're trying to do you probably do that at the same 3 K or 4 K. You're talking about the same 5 K distance race so the 3 K or 4 K is where you want to sit with that and you want to try to hit that threshold and maintain that pace for that 3 or 4 K. And it will hurt - it's supposed to hurt.
Carlie: It's supposed to hurt.
Corey: If it's not hurting, you're doing it wrong.
Carlie: I love the hurt, honestly. It means you're working. You really cannot get faster unless you run faster unless you do speedwork. It really is like the only thing that you have to do if you want to improve your times, you have to include speedwork into your weekly training, your monthly training, your weekly training. I really much prefer to face the threshold pressure.
Corey: But the thing is I like to mix the 2 of them.
Carlie: Yes, you have to.
Corey: Right, so in an instance where, say I'm building plans for someone, they're running like 3 days week. One of those days will be dedicated to speedwork and what I'll do is alternate weeks where it goes from intervals to tempo running over the duration of your plan. So yeah, that's how I usually work with the speedwork.
Carlie: If you're doing like 3 days week, so right now I'm doing like 4 days running plus two days gym training. So, of those 4 days of real running, because then the gym training days I do cardio and recovery really easy just like time efforts, not even ‘efforts’ that's the wrong word, like a timed portion of cardio. So, these four days I really do more like 3 days speed work and I've been doing that for the last about nine months or so and it's actually it's like crazy help to me.
Corey: Ok, so you're doing 3-day speed work and one day a long run.
Carlie: Correct.
Corey: So, your 3 days, they're not all the same?
Carlie: No, they're not all the same and that's actually yeah so, I would do something like a threshold run one of those days. I might do shorter intervals like 20 x 200s or like a speed endurance session where I would go from 100 meters and then I do 110 meters like a ladder and then 120 and then 130 and then up to 200 and back down kind of thing. Or I would also do like 1200-meter repeats on another day. So, I'm mixing up all the different types of speedwork.
Corey: Right. So, what you're doing now you're leading us really well into fartleks or speed play.
Carlie: Correct, yeah. You through the word 'play' in there like it'll be fun.
Corey: Because you're going to be playing with your different paces.
Carlie: Yeah.
Corey: This is something that you do after you start to be able to dial in what your pace supposed to feel like and it lets you in some instances you just hit the pace that you're supposed to run for a period and then back off to something else. Fartleks come in all shapes.
Carlie: They really do.
Corey: So, fartlek can be something as simple as an interval ladder. So, we can do a 2, 4, 6, 800-meter ladder and then you come back down the ladder. So, you hit the 8, maybe 1000 once and then you'll come back 8, 6 all the way back down. And what you'll be doing in each of those is you're running at your 200-pace and then you're running your 400-pace, then 8 and then do 1000-pace. They are all different paces.
Carlie: They should be.
Corey: They should be all different paces.
Carlie: Yeah, although I find, honestly with me sometimes I struggle with that little bit because I feel like my 400-pace and my 800-pace are the same. Like there's only so fast I can get and then all I do is I just keep that speed and extend it. I find that sort of a thing I have to work on a little bit.
Corey: So, that means then that if you can run 400 meters flat out and you can hold off for 800, that means your 400-meter should be much faster.
Carlie: Correct, absolutely. I mean I would phrase it like oh, your 800-meter is very fast, but no let's phrase it the correct way which would be no your 400-meter slow, you should be running faster.
Corey: Right, you're slacking off Carlie.
Carlie: I am you know, oh gosh no.
Corey: Right, ok. So, that's a lot of work though.
Carlie: Yeah. It's up and down normally which is why I think it's called a ladder, and this ladder is latin for something else I don't know, but yes.
Corey: OK so, that's a lot of work and then a really nice basic one is running light poles.
Carlie: Yeah, I was going to say that like our highways are so good for that because the round-a-bouts are about equally a mile apart. And the poles like the light poles are something like 100 or 200 I think they're like 100 or 200 meters apart, right?
Corey: Thereabout and I mean if you're on country roads you're a lot more random.
Carlie: You’d have to run potholes if you’re country roads instead of light poles!
Corey: Right, so what you can do is something as simple as easy run from one pole to the next and when you get to that pole you dial it straight into your 5 K pace until you reach the other pole and pull it back. And you can vary that, one to one, two to one, whatever. And I really find that a nice way for like a really, really, really beginner, to get them from like walk two light poles and then run one.
Carlie: Yeah, yeah.
Corey: And that gives them a visual map as in, ok, this is what I'm doing.
Carlie: Yeah and also a visual goal too, this is where I'm heading.
Corey: And it's a more low-tech version of like a 2 minute off one minute on, whatever. So, it's more low-tech, you've got a real beginner, doesn't have any tech, doesn't even have his own running width, and they can look and say OK, I'm going to run to the next light pole.
Carlie: Pole to a pole.
Corey: That's it.
Carlie: And that's a good workout for people who are just sort of casually running from home like on the roads and stuff because there're so many markers and land markers that you can use.
Corey: And one that I really, I remember that we used to do that, I really liked that at one point. When we were training with Liz on the garrison, we used to do the three to one-minute efforts and they were terrible. They were terrible, so for somebody where it is a continuous run.
Carlie: Correct, and I think that's a key differentiator too between fartleks and like interval round additions. Because fartlek is continuous, if you're doing a 30 minute or 20 minute or 45 minutes depending on your level of fitness and what you're training for, you're running the entire time you're just changing the pace you're running at. Whereas, is if you're doing 200 meters you will stop and maybe walk or jog or like stand up in between your 200s and 400s. You'll do the 'oh my God'.
Corey: Oh yeah. So, I remember that workout was very cool because how it would work is, we do 1 minute, you do a one-minute almost max effort that you can hold for one minute.
Carlie: Yes.
Corey: And then go straight into a two-minute max effort. That's not true, no we recovered, like a jog. So, with one-minute recoveries, yes, I remember it now. So, we do one-minute recovery one-minute efforts and then one-minute recovery and a two-minute effort, then a one-minute recovery then a 3-minute effort.
Carlie: Yeah. And really your recovery should never be like a crawl, your recovery pace, you should still try to keep that, I want to say if you're doing your hard effort really hard like a 3000 meter or 5000 meter pace, you would still want your recovery to be like your half marathon or maybe like your marathon or whatever pace. Depending on how you feel how hard the effort was, a bunch will kill you. Another thing I love about the fartlek too is it's such a social way to approach speedwork. If you're running with a group and you have a group of good friends and you're at different levels of fitness you're at different levels of ability...
Corey: You can all stay together and get a good workout.
Carlie: And stayed together, because in your recovery time, your recovery efforts, it gives someone who may have pushed ahead a little bit, they can turn around and jog back to the group. Another way to do them is to take turns being the leader. So, if me, Corey and Liz, for example, are doing our fartlek and Liz is the leader first, she decides how long the effort is going to be and how difficult it's going to be, right?
Corey: Right.
Carlie: So, she will go ahead and the others in the group are not allowed to pass her because it's her turn being the leader. And then when she's done hers, next up Corey will jump in and then it will be my turn and that's a way that everybody gets a workout, and everybody gets to stay together. And running is really social, really it is, in many ways, it's a social activity. So, it's nice when you get to all hang out together and not just have the super quick ones going on down the road and disappearing.
Corey: It's true.
Carlie: Everybody gets to stay together.
Corey: It's true, it is true.
Carlie: Not that I like fartleks, it sounds like I like fartleks. I do not like fartleks.
Corey: No one likes fartleks. It is almost like a fartlek when you start looking at an active recovery in your intervals. So, say you're doing a 400-meter repeat, 10 x 400-meter repeats but then you just take away the walking recovery or the one-minute recovery and it goes straight into like a jog recovery for the 200 meters.
Carlie: Correct.
Corey: So, now you are shifting between your comfortable 200-meter pace and your faster work-specific period. That counts to be a 30 minutes 40 minutes workout, so same thing, continuous effort for 40 minutes.
Carlie: Another type of workout which I've done a few times which is 400, except continuous 400s and every other you do it as a hard effort. So, you'll do your first one as your hard effort and your second 400 you keep going, go straight into it you'll drop that down for me I would switch between like a 5 K pace or a 3000 pace and a half marathon pace.
Corey: But this is for your training at what race distance?
Carlie: Well, I'm not really sure how to answer that I just do the workouts I don't know what I'm training for, come on Corey. I think that for me to work out like that would probably be more like a 10 K up.
Corey: OK cool.
Carlie: That would benefit someone who is running like a 10 K and I mean it will benefit anybody really. But if you're looking at 5 K only as your maximum distance, you're probably better off doing the 400s faster with a break in between. I would think, I'm not qualified one here.
Corey: You're just the fast one.
Carlie: I'm just the fast one here man.
Corey: The faster one.
Carlie: Yeah, I like that, faster. Now, let's talk about hills and how they fit into a speedwork sort of session or dimension. How do we use hill sprints to be faster?
Corey: Hills make you really strong, so it's almost strength work, well it is strength work. So, running uphill builds all your muscles, so this is everything from your glutes, hamstrings, your calf muscle, which is two muscles, that's your gastroc.
Carlie: You mean one in each leg?
Corey: No, it is two muscles that you think about when thin your body calf, that's the gastroc and the soleus. The thing that you think of when you think calf, that's the gastroc.
Carlie: This meaty one right here?
Corey: That meaty one is the gastroc, the gastrocnemius and then the one right under it that you don't think of as part...
Carlie: Which would be down from your ankle you mean?
Corey: Right. So, from your ankle to the calf is the soleus, they both are your calf.
Carlie: And hills will help us with them with our two sets of hamstrings and our glutes too?
Corey: Right, it'll help strengthen all of them but more importantly it helps you with your explosive strength. So, you're pushing off the first, you're looking at ground reaction forces, so as long as you've got your kinetic chain nice and tight, your abs, your arms, your back is tight as they are.
Carlie: He's talking about me specifically, obviously, but let's talk generally now Corey.
Corey: Looking at your kinetic chain, your kinetic chain is now transferring the force from the floor all the way back. So, to maximize your ground reaction first thing you try to put more effort, more force into the floor and then take that back and help that to propel you forward. So, going uphill the steeper the hill the harder you have to work.
Carlie: The better you mean, the steeper the hill the better.
Corey: Yeah, you've got to work hard at it and so that helps you to learn how to build the force, explosive force through the floor.
Carlie: Let's give some recommendations of hills that people, now that we've excited them so much and they're ready to do hill sprints.
Corey: In Barbados.
Carlie: In Barbados.
Corey: A nice flat hill.
Carlie: Oh, I was thinking like steep.
Corey: Oh, glory.
Carlie: Well, the one at the gymnasium I think is a good example. A lot of people use that hill.
Corey: Yeah, a lot of people use that one, it's short.
Carlie: Good steepness.
Corey: You can get a good 20-second 30-second run on that gymnasium hill. One that we spent a lot of time on in the past is actually UWI.
Carlie: From the bottom?
Corey: Yes, just from like sprints from like almost by the roundabout where the RBC, it is no longer RBC and stopping right by the entrance to the university. And that's a good 40 second 60 second.
Carlie: Actually, Simon came one time, we did a hill work out there. I went with a couple people I can't remember who else was there, I think like probably Jason and a few people of Simon came along. Simon is an individual who doesn't like to run a lot, but he came along, and he was like oh my God this is so hard. I'm like yes, I'm glad you appreciate what I do every day.
Corey: Yeah, that was a tough one. I would not advise anyone to run up Rendezvous Hill. That's just dangerous, you can get hit by a car.
Carlie: You can't do repeats on a hill like that. I've run up it before, OK so you know the hill challenge, not the hill challenge, Heart Uh Barbados race that they used to have which is very hilly because it's in the heart of Barbados where the only hills are, on this pancake place. So, my whole idea of how I would train for that is I think I took a pet bottle and I filled it with water or whatever, so it will be heavy, and I like ran up Rendezvous Hill and I don't know why because that's the thing that you do. This is like on a morning early, I wasn't doing repeats it was part of my route.
Corey: Just one run.
Carlie: And I think I went up Rendezvous Hill and then up to like BET hill kind of by the pine and turned around and came back down and that was partly for my training.
Corey: Well, how did that go? I remember leaving you and the others.
Carlie: Yeah, I know that the hills and strength are really my weakness I have to work on. But I want to say about hills since we've included it in speedwork is that it does build strength which is what we've said but it will not help your leg turnover which is really what speedwork also is about. It's about getting your legs to circle around in a circle, cycle faster so that you can move your legs quicker and get where you're going faster. And the thing that will help you with that is really flat surfaces fast.
Corey: Or.
Carlie: Or let me hear it, what else?
Corey: Downhill running.
Carlie: Downhill running, yes.
Corey: If you want to run downhill fast, you've got to get that foot to land under you.
Carlie: Yes
Corey: [27:38 overlapping talk] And downhill running works the quads. So, it works the quads so it's completely, it takes the pressure off of the hamstrings and all the posterior chain and then puts the real pressure on the quads and those muscles. And the thing about downhill running it makes you work your like turnover speed without having to exert the effort to run faster.
Carlie: That's a good point. Exert the leg turnover speed without having to run faster. So, flat would be more effort from your body to propel you forward whereas, downhill gravity is doing it for you, you are going downhill one way or another, regardless.
Corey: We did a race on Saturday as part of A Cross Fit Competition, and this was hell on earth because we had the pleasure of running up Shop hill from the bottom.
Carlie: To the top.
Corey: To the top. And then circle inside of Vaulcluse Raceway and then run back down. So, that's like just under 8 K and that last two and a half K, that was [28:57 overlapping talk].
Carlie: Wow, 8 K and
Corey: That was a surprise.
Carlie: Oh, yeah.
Corey: That was a surprise because it was supposed to be a 5 K.
Carlie: Did they measure it wrong or was it like a surprise, 8 K?
Corey: This was just a lie. Thank you, Lavern and Limitless games, thank you, that was an awesome race. So, there we are running our 5 K and we get to the entrance of Vaulcluse only to realize that you have to like run in it. Run around the actual race track and then come back home. So, yeah. And on the way down that's like two and a half K of downhill. So, I got to a point where I was like, guys, take off the brakes and let go.
Carlie: And just let go. [29:46 unintelligible]
Corey: So, there I was I was like take off the brakes and let go. And like after like 150 meters I looked back. I'm still running downhill by the way.
Carlie: Yeah.
Corey: So, I peep over my shoulder and was like, guys? There's no one with me so I'm just like floating down the hill. I was like, well, I can't really slow down now might as well go with it.
Carlie: Might as well, keep gathering momentum, it's all physics.
Corey: Yeah, exactly. So, that was probably my fastest 5 K, sorry, my fastest race finish in history because it was all downhill.
Carlie: Like a roller coaster.
Corey: Yes, just all downhill. So, recap, we have done intervals, we have done threshold running, we've done fartleks in all forms and we touched on the hills.
Carlie: We kind of touched on ladders a little bit which is basically just coming up and back down the distance.
Corey: Yeah, it's very variable distance.
Carlie: Now, do we need to combine all of these? Should we or should we pick one?
Corey: I think is really what your focus, it's your focus. So, things like an interval repeat and your tempos that's your bread and butter, that's your all the time. Fartlek, you can apply your fartlek earlier on in your training cycle where you're just trying to get your legs working.
Carlie: And building up an aerobic base, is that correct?
Corey: Yes. So, you can use your fartlek while you're in that early stage in your cycle.
Carlie: Correct.
Corey: So, in the first part when you're just building distance over the distance on volume, you can use fartlek at that point just to build up. And then you can swap that out altogether for the alternating intervals and threshold running. If you are in your, say you are offseason and you are building strength now. You finished the race probably 3 weeks ago your next race is quite a way away, but you haven't begun your 12 or 16-week cycle for that race, you can spend a couple weeks working on hills just to get your strength up. This is where you start doing a lot of running drills, agility training that kind of stuff, and yeah.
Carlie: I feel that we should do something on drills sometimes because.
Corey: Yeah, that one might need to be like a video.
Carlie: I was just going to say but that needs a visual.
Corey: A video podcast.
Carlie: Because it’s hard to, if you explain to me, I'll nod and smile like to really visualize but how is that like twist your leg, how do I …
Corey: So, look out for that video podcast that we have no idea when it's going to happen but it's going to happen.
Carlie: Yeah, we'll drop it.
Corey: Yeah, for sure.
Carlie: We'll not plan it we'll just drop it.
Cory: Surprise album from Carly and Cory.
Carlie: 100% with you. And warm up and cool down, of course, if we're doing speedwork, we have to warm up first people and we have to cool down after, of course.
Corey: For sure.
Carly: Personally, I would do anything like a mile to maybe 15 minutes easy warm-up same for cool down if I have energy.
Corey: You're doing a mile for your warm-up? Oh God, my students would die.
Carlie: Really?
Corey: They would curse every time.
Carlie: Or 15 minutes which it works out to be like maybe 2 miles.
Corey: What I like to do though especially for if it's a day like you're doing speedwork is just do a jog probably 300 meters and then ease into like a dynamic warm-up. So, how would I even describe B skips and all that kind of stuff. Because we want when you start your repeats that your nervous system is primed and ready. You don't want to go into your first repeat cold.
Carlie: Correct, that's when you injure yourself.
Corey: That's when you destroy yourself.
Carlie: And remember you want to be going AFAP, as fast as possible. Oh my gosh, so I'm going do a quick little recap here on the best speedwork for each race distance. So, speedwork for the 5 K, you can jump in if you want Corey, but I would say probably say 200s, 400s, like 800s. Does that make sense?
Corey: Yeah, I mean 800s, I might leave off the 800s in the 5 Ks.
Carlie: Leave off the 800s, 2s and 4s.
Corey: Yeah, 2s and 4s for 5 K for sure.
Carlie: 10 K, same as 400s, 800s. Half marathons?
Corey: I'll do the occasional 1000.
Carlie: I comin’ to those 1000s in a second. But the half marathon, 800s, 1000s 1200s, mile repeats definitely. And also, of course, all the threshold that goes without saying, all the threshold and the fartlek type stuff because you are going to be on your feet for over an hour in your half marathon, an hour to two hours.
Corey: And I mean look at the kind of distances you're talking about for your threshold too, because I've seen Ryan Hall do like an 8-mile tempo run
Carlie: Yeah, ouch.
Corey: And these guys are holding four-minute miles for this duration.
Carlie: Oh right, which just leads me on to the 1000 comment, the 1000-meter repeats. So, if I'm doing like 1000 or somewhere in the vicinity of like 1200, I'll do like maybe 6. I saw the guy who just set the new world half-marathon record, I don't remember his name, because it would be really evil of me not to say his name.
Corey: Tadese?
Carlie: No, it was like a week ago, maybe.
Corey: Oh ok, I didn't watch that one.
Carlie: Oh, I don't get the internet in this room. But anyway, his workout before the race was like 20 x 1-kilometer repeats, 20 x 1000s. I was like 20! 20! I can do maybe 10. I used to do 10 quite often but chi is gone, but yeah man. But he probably runs over half marathons as well, I think.
Corey: It was Abraham Kiptum.
Carlie: Oh, you're on data, thank you for that.
Corey: Yeah, for sure.
Carlie: How much did that cost you?
Corey: A slight $0.32.
Carlie: Abraham Kiptum so yeah.
Corey: World record of 58 minutes and 20...
Carlie: 29 seconds?
Corey: What? 58:23. They wrote this so terrible. No, that's the last one, it's 58:18 is the new world record.
Carlie: Oh, and the previous was 58:23.
Corey: 58:23 was the last from Zersenay Tadese.
Carlie: So, the speedwork for the marathon now would be 800s and like mile repeats.
Corey: For sure.
Carlie: 1000s and that kind of thing. This also brings us to the Yasso 800s because that's a really popular speedwork exercise that people do and they also use it to predict their race paces and potential times which I think is also important for us to talk about how you figure out how fast you should be running and what your goal race pace should be based on all your speedwork. So, I'll just go over how a Yasso 800 workout works. And the sort of theory behind it which seems to work really well for people is if you take your marathon goal time in hours and minutes and you convert it to minutes and seconds which would be the finish time that you do in 800 meters. So, for example, if your marathon goal is 3 hours and 10 minutes then you should be running an 800 in 3 minutes and 10 seconds. You're taking the same digits you're just making it minutes and seconds instead of hours and minutes. So, a lot of people seem to figure that works. I don't obviously do marathons, so I couldn't tell you. But yeah, it's named after Bart Yasso, the Chief Running officer at Runner's World magazine who popularized the workout. So, in terms of knowing what our goal race pace is based on our speedwork pace like what's the magic equation?
Corey: I have no idea.
Carlie: You do not know.
Corey: I do not know.
Carlie: Neither do I which is why I was looking at you.
Corey: No, what I do is I use McMillan running.
Carlie: Oh yeah, a race calculator.
Corey: Yeah, use a race calculator. Why I like McMillan though is McMillan will give you your training paces for all these distances and all these different workouts. Everything. And what it will even do it will tell you ok this is for speed training and endurance training. So, it will literally spell out all this information, it will put in some demographic stuff at first too, so like your last race. So, this is not for a rank beginner, you need to have done at least one or two races before. You have some information, you know what's your baseline, your go mcmillanrunning.com, put in your demographic information so I'm male, you're a female, I'm 72 and a half, all that. My last race, my last 5 K was 15 minutes because I'm quick like that. And then what it will do...
Carlie: Predict what your 400-meter training should look like.
Corey: Right, it will tell you where you should be running at for each distance.
Carlie: I haven't done that in a little while. Because obviously, as you improve too you've got it change it. You've got to check the calculator again and update that.
Corey: Exactly. And there is a lot of different training pace, sorry, race calculators, but this one gives you your training paces and I really like that part.
Carlie: And hopefully, you should be able to get faster and faster as you go along and update those training paces. That's the goal, run faster to be faster.
Corey: Yeah, if you're sticking to your plan unless something goes wrong everything should work. Stick to your plan, hydrate, nutrition is on point, your rest is on point and on race day you just like let the dogs out.
Carlie: Just let the dogs out, absolutely. And hope you get a good day on race day and not like get flooded out like this Venice Marathon.
Corey: That was the worst like imagine you're in...
Carlie: Duh, you're in Venice there is water.
Corey: De water in the canals! So, it might be that you are in Venice and you're in a marathon which starts basically in the countryside and you are going to end like in the city. So, you're running it’s a nice, beautiful hot day and you make it to the city 20 miles later and you are in ankle deep water.
Carlie: That makes it so much harder too because if you run in water, you realize oh my God it's like harder.
Corey: Yeah. And I mean like the city's been underwater for a while now.
Carlie: Hey, just swim, I mean really at that point you could just swim the last six miles.
Corey: Basically. And then I saw like video on the lane of restaurants where the guys are wearing like water boots and serving. Then the entire restaurant floors like covered in water.
Carlie: Was that from rain because I didn't really follow the story. What caused all the water?
Corey: I think it was heavy rain and then the canal just sprang over.
Carlie: The canals probably just overflowed.
Corey: Yeah, the canals just overflowed. kind of what happened in Trinidad, when the carnie overflowed the banks and messed up like half of them. It's terrible.
Carlie: Imagine running a race and then it's like darn.
Corey: You'll be finishing in, yeah.
Carlie: Finishing in water.
Corey: So, we've got anything else to talk about?
Carlie: No, well just one thing before we go. So, I did this morning, that was a speedwork. I did a time trial on a 1000-meter, I want you to guess my time.
Corey: A time trial, 1000 meter.
Carlie: Yeah, kilometer, 1 kilometer. what was my time? It was supposed to be a 100 percent effort.
Corey: And your 5 K is if I remember 19 and change.
Carlie: I'm not answering you because you have to guess.
Corey: So, 19 divided by 5, I am going to go with it should be somewhere around 3:30 I would assume.
Carlie: Give me an exact number.
Corey: I'm going to go with 3:28.
Carlie: You’re close, 3:23. Within 5 seconds that's good. And my 5 Ks haven't been 19 minutes recently so I'm glad to hear that you went from 19 and you arrived...
Corey: Oh, so then, in that case, that means that...
Carlie: That means that I am running too slow.
Corey: You're running too slow Carlie. That's the moral of the story today, Carlie, you're running too slow.
Carlie: But it's a perfect example of how I'm going to take the paces I am running in training and I'm going to find some good races where it's not flooded and I'm going to translate my training paces into my race paces and I'm going to plan, I'm going to do speedwork.
Corey: Yeah, you've got like five weeks to your race, right?
Carlie: I think it's like three weeks.
Corey: No man.
Carlie: Yeah man.
Corey: Really?
Carlie: Yeah man.
Corey: Shucks.
Carlie: Yeah, I'm doing secret racing. I'm doing on December the 2nd, the reggae marathon.
Corey: Oh, you're doing Jamaica too.
Carlie: Jamaica.
Corey: Jamaica man
Carlie: Which is like three weeks away roughly.
Corey: I'm putting in my coffee order from now.
Carlie: You do that and please lift up your prayers so that I can do really well on this half marathon.
Corey: Yeah, but I really want coffee.
Carlie: But you really just want the coffee?
Corey: I really just want the coffee, but yeah man good luck with that for sure. So, your taper is starting what, next week?
Carlie: I guess.
Corey: Geez, so run smart, train smart, not hard. Where is the podcast we are on?
Carlie: iTunes and the other places that you find podcasts. But we're on iTunes, we are also...
Corey: Google podcast, Spotify, and all that good stuff.
Carlie: They're all there and of course on carlierunsbarbados.com that's where the blog that accompanies the podcast as well is there and you can click through, you can listen, you can subscribe, just click on podcast up in the right hand section and it will take you right through and you can listen to them all.
Corey: Cool. I am Corey.
Carlie: And I'm Carlie.
Corey: Finish strong people.
Carlie: Curreck!
