The Yasso 800 Blessing

It’s not often that my schedule is free on a Wednesday and even more rare when YHC has an opening to Q at the School Yard. There was an opening on the Q board and finally a workout that has been in my hip pocket for months got to be revealed to the pax. 27 men came to the School Yard expecting a bootcamp, what they got was Yasso’s 800 courtesy of OBT.

The Thang – After a brief disclaimer, given because there were a ton of fresh faces out in the 27 degree gloom, we ran off with a “Follow Me” to the track. Did a few dynamic stretches, including Tin Man, and High Knee grab to Reverse lung before a quick mosey to explain the plan.

• 5 x 800m intervals, trying to maintain roughly the same pace from the first through the last. Regroup after each interval and do 200m walk/slow jog recovery. So that is what the plan was supposed to be. The cold sucked the brains out of my shorts and we ended up doing 400m recovery intervals, which slowed down the workout. We still got our 5th 800m lap in, by the skin of our chin.

As OBT explained – This was a shorter version of the famous Yasso 800 workout with which many marathoners are familiar. The idea, put forward by Runner’s World editor Bart Yasso in a famous article in the 1990s, is to do your speed workouts around a series of 800m repeats (that’s half a mile or two times around more tracks). The goal is always to run them hard but at an even pace, meaning you don’t run the first one in 2:55 and the last one in 4:15. As you build up to your race, you add an additional 800 each week until you get to 9 or 10 of them. The pace that you can hold for all 9 or 10 is supposed to be about what you ought to be able to run your marathon in, translating minutes and seconds into hours and minutes. In other words, if you can run a series of 8-10 800s in or right around 3:45, you ought to be trained to run a 3 hour, 45 minute marathon (assuming you’ve also been doing your long runs and other mileage).

The fastest time for an 800 was 2:55 and the most mosey time was 5:31. Although this was a range of time, Cousin IT led the way back each round for the 6 and the 2nd F that happened during the recovery lap was neat to hear. You learn that the man beside you is also an Eagle Scout. You get to recognize and call out a brother who modeled being a brother and going to the back of the pax yesterday and picking up a 60# sandbag to help a brother out. You saw guys push hard. You saw guys fall down and get up and finish strong. You saw the studs of F3ENC and F3Raleigh push themselves.

COT/BOM – Prayers for KIng Pin’s family, esp his sister and father-in-law. Prayers for Abu’s colleague’s mom. String Bean’s family member. Prayers for patience, for connections, for strength, for love. Prayers for Slim Jim who rolled like a champ during the run, just like it was planned.

Announcements – The 3rd Darkside Ruck is set for Saturday 2/3 at 0440 meeting at Covenant Church for a long Rucking practice. F3Camporee is May 4th/5th at the Refugee with your 2.0s. Farmville Launch continues this Saturday. Be sure to check out the Announcements page for info about the 3rd F3ENC Anniversary Convergence on Feb 24th and the CoopStrong 4 Miler/Ruck on March 24th.

Moleskin – There was a lot of moaning and groaning as we circled up for the Ball of Man. That’s OK because when you leave it all out in the gloom, when you go at a slow and steady pace, when you can last a long time and finish strong and hard, it’s OK to moan. Hey, I’m just talking about track. This Q is probably laughing harder at that lame joke than any of you guys.

Today was about doing something different. It was about using the environment, even if the SchoolYard track is old and broken and filled with secret patches of ice. It was about expecting the unexpected and using the bonds of brotherhood to connect with another man during a recovery lap and push each other hard during the 3rd “500” of the 800m run (that’s the third quarter for you new guys). To be honest, this Q hates running. To the point where the only way I learned how to run was bad luck. The only workouts I could do early on were the Commons, Run Strong, Wednesday afternoon Stadium, and some others when it worked out. That meant that if I wanted to F3 I had to run. It wasn’t until the Charity Challenge squat challenge that Mellow Johnny, Early Bird, and some others did that I got fast, because that’s when I developed my pasty white running legs.

You know it takes a little while and a lot of stupidity to realize how much you miss something you hate. Today was about simple blessings. There hasn’t been much posting by this Q during the dissertation suck fest that is slowly coming to a close. Today was about the blessing of being able to post. It was about running in GoRuck Ranger panties in 27 degree weather. I was thankful. It was about talking with Half-pipe, Pied Piper, Jock Itch. It was about meeting White Lightening and the other Can of Corn crew. It was about watching Skipper run out of his house and be excited because some other studs would join him at the School Yard. It was about watching the ruckers come up and the runners run up after EC. It was about the honor of saying a prayer at the end and being thankful for all the great things that come about when you do something that you used to hate. Today was a blessing, so thank you for the opportunity to lead today See Thru.