Sometimes the simplest training ideas are also the best. Yasso 800s prove this point. A favorite and much-verified marathon workout, Yasso 800s evolved from a happy but random conversation on the run.
Several decades ago, I was enjoying a relaxed workout with my Runner’s World colleague Bart Yasso. The talk turned to marathon training, as it often does when serious runners get together. We’re always trying to figure out new and better ways to prepare for the classic Olympic distance.
On this particular run, Bart began telling me about his personal favorite marathon workout. He would take his goal time for the marathon—let’s say 3 hours and 10 minutes—and adapt it to 800-meter repeats by turning the 3 hours and 10 minutes for the marathon into 3 minutes and 10 seconds for each 800-meter repeat. Bart explained that he had discovered he could run a 3:10 marathon when he could do ten 800-meter repeats in 3 minutes and 10 seconds each. Between the 800-meter runs, he would walk or jog for the same period of time, 3 minutes and 10 seconds.
I was startled by Bart’s plan. It sounded utterly ridiculous. I had been studying the marathon and marathon training for thirty years, but had never heard of anything remotely similar. Why should the marathon time and 800 time line up so perfectly? It made no sense. I couldn’t have been more skeptical.
After finishing the conversation with Bart, I hurried back to my office and started calling and emailing friends. I asked them all the same two questions: If you did a workout today of ten repeats of 800 meters, what would your average time be? And how fast can you currently run a marathon?
I reached friends who were five-hour marathoners, and one who could run 2:08. And the Yasso formula held true for all of them. It appeared to describe a universal relationship for runners.
The very next day, I sat down and wrote a Yasso 800 training article for Runner’s World. It first appeared in 2001. Since then the workout has been successfully validated by tens of thousands of runners around the globe. In her training for the 2017 Boston Marathon, fifty years after her first Boston in 1967, Kathrine Switzer used Yasso 800s to get herself in top shape. “I walked or jogged really slowly for 4 minutes after each 800, and worked my way up to 10 repetitions,” she told me.
Yasso 800s aren’t a perfect workout—nothing is—but they come pretty darn close. There’s no better way to hone your training for an ambitious marathon time.
Start with four Yassos: You can’t just go to a track or nearby stretch of road to knock out ten Yasso 800s. As with all other training, you have to build gradually to your goal. I recommend beginning with just four Yasso 800s. This should prove very doable. It’s OK to strive for a time based on your goal marathon pace, so long as that time is reasonable.
You can also aim for a high-end total of eight Yassos. This is two less than what Bart put himself through, but it’s enough to get the job done. And it fits well with my overall training philosophy: a little less is better than too much.
Add one Yasso a week: If you’re training for a marathon, you’ve probably selected a twelve- to sixteen-week program. That’s way too many weeks to do Yasso 800s each week. But you can drop the first weeks (of endurance building) and the last weeks (of taper time), leaving room in the middle of your training for Yassos.
Since I believe in starting with four Yassos and increasing to eight, I’d recommend planning five Yasso 800 workouts during your marathon program. Just stick with the gradual approach, adding one more 800 each time. Do four Yasso 800s the first week, five the second, and so on until you reach eight.
Spread your wings: While Bart Yasso invented his now-namesake workout specifically for marathon runners, it’s a fun and valuable tool for all runners who are trying to improve. The numbers happen to work in a marathon context, but the effort and physiology extend to all race distances.
Basically, the pace of Yasso 800s is a bit slower than the optimal interval pace, but somewhat faster than tempo pace. That puts it in the sweet spot of training paces for road runners who typically race distances from the 5K to the half marathon or marathon.
You can’t go wrong running at this intensity. If you’re not training for a marathon, there’s no need to cram Yasso 800s into a five- to eight-week period. Use them whenever you please, perhaps every two to three weeks, as part of your regular training diet. They’re fun, challenging, and numerically precise.