how much rest should I give myself? I usually take 60 sec after 400 and 800. Is 2 min too much?
I run them about 6:20-6:45 pace depending on how in shape I am.
I run about the same pace as you and I think 2 mins is ok and will certainly help your fitness. 1 min though is really kicking it up. 1 min would be something to work up to.
I often do 400m very easy in between 1k or 1600m repeats. Keeps the legs moving while you are still able to recover (mostly).
depends on the purpose of the intervals…
depends on the purpose of the intervals…
True this, though I don’t pretend to be a good runner (my mile intervals are ~7:00 pace), I’m near the end stages of semi-following a Daniels 5k-15k run plan, so can at least speak from a tiny bit of recent experience. Depending on your speed, in Daniels book there are (at least) three main types of ~mile sessions. All the paces for each type of set are based on his Vdot tables (http://www.coacheseducation.com/endur/jack-daniels-nov-00.htm).
The first are true Daniels Intervals, (I-pace) or VO2max sets, but he advocates no intervals longer than 5 minutes for VO2max, so you’d have to run miles at 5:00 or faster to do these. For me, this meant 1200m intervals. These have ~equal work/rest.
The second are “cruise intervals” where you run the miles at your threshold (T-pace), followed by short rest intervals, from ~20 seconds to ~1 minute. Basically a way to change up what would otherwise be a long threshold session.
Third are as part of fartlek-type sets where you do some 1 to 2 mile intervals at threshold, with 1 to 2 min rest, then some 800’s at I pace, ~2min rest, then some 400’s at R pace, with ~2min rest.
My interval / recovery usually looks like this:
4-5 min interval / 1 min recovery
6-8 min / 2 min
8-10 min / 3 min
I’m running mile intervals at a similar speed to you.
As has been stated, it depends on your objective…
but, if you are running a classic mile repeat workout…say, 4 to 5 x 1 mile at about your 5k race pace…2 minutes is reasonable…although, an easy 400 is customary (and will work out to a bit more time than 2 minutes)
Without this devolving into a “what’s your fav track workout” thread…I would respectfully suggest that there are any number of other, more entertaining workouts than the drudgery of mile repeats…
Our workout Tuesday night was 4 sets of:
300 w/ 100 jog
600 w/ 200 jog
1200 w/400 jog
All at just under 5k pace (33-34 seconds for 200 for me…77 second quarters)
I think it’s been suggested but you can use mile repeats for a few different things.
In general if you are doing them at
3k pace give yourself 4 minutes to full recovery
5k pace give yourself 3 minutes
10k pace 1-2 minutes
or something like that.