Yasso 800s

So, although I have said over and over again, NO SPEEDWORK, sometimes I just can't help myself and find ways to justify it in my mind. Last week, I did some FAST running focusing on uphill and downhill efficiency and form. Short, 30-40 second bursts, so I figured, how much could that really bother my legs???? Aside from being sore the next day, I was able to recover quite well and had a fabulous long run this past weekend. It also has really helped my confidence in terms of fitness level and just knowing that the speed I haven't felt in months is still somewhere in these legs.

So this week's workout was 800s. Yasso 800s, to be exact. 800 repeats trying to hit the same as my predicted marathon time, roughly at tempo effort (82-85%). My internal justification for this one? It's TEMPO effort, not speedwork!! Also, although I have some ideas and goals for my first marathon, I am really trying to keep the 'I just want to finish healthy and have fun with it' attitude. But I thought the 800s would be a nice indicator as to what may be in the realm of possibility.

I did 6x 800s, with equal time active recovery following each. They went like this:
3.30
3.41
3.22
3.43
3.32
3.58
Please note, I was not running on a flat track, so the odds were a slight net downhill and the evens a slight net uphill (as you can see in the time differences). Oh, and the last one hurt, BIG TIME.

My main conclusion- I have NO idea what to expect in terms of time. The point of these 800s is to be able to hold a pace for all the repeats at a tempo effort. I obviously did not do this. Hard when it's not flat.

My take-aways from this workout, 12 hours later:
1. I think this workout is going to be a great benchmark workout that I am going to try to do every 3-4 weeks until the marathon. By closer to the marathon, I would like to do 10 repeats. I think I will also do them on the res (read: flat) so I can focus on holding the same time/effort on all the repeats.
2. My body can handle more than I am giving it credit for right now. I ran 14 miles, pushing the middle 10 a bit, on Sunday and did this workout last night. After 4 repeats last night I wanted to stop, my hip was aching, but I did two more. And yes, my body and hip were sore on the slow jog home and afterwards, but after ice and Advil, I feel pretty good today. Oh, and my shins have not been bothering me at ALL in the past three weeks of pretty steady mileage increase!