Personally I find the extra 1:30 massively beneficial. Assuming the idea behind intervals is to condition yourself to go faster than 2K pace it seems reasonable to take more - rather than less rest.aharmer wrote:When he references the 8x500 is it 3:30r or 2:00r? And to extend that thought, how much would you expect the extra 1:30r to help a guy out? I currently do the 8x500 with 2:00r but don't remember exactly why.
I don’t want to risk posting anything out of context but in answer to the above question - this is the quote leading up to MC's pyramid comments above in which he refers to 8*500.
“So, each week for each workout I have a firm goal pace. The next step is to create a specific plan for achieving the desired workout goal. For a workout like 8 x 500m, a simple method (as described in the original WP document) is to take the average pace from the previous time you completed the workout, and begin the new workout at that pace, bringing it down for the final 2-3 intervals to finish with a new, lower average. Then repeat the format next time you do the same workout. This works fairly well, especially earlier in the season when you’re not exactly sure how hard to push, and you will probably make large gains initially. But I caution against going too hard too often, and someone who pushes too hard too soon in the season will probably plateau early. After the first couple times with this workout in a given season, I settle into choosing a goal pace that is on average 1 tenth of a sec faster per 500m for every week since I last did the workout. If I finish a little ahead of my goal, I’ll readjust my target for next time. So, last week my target for 8 x 500m was 1:33.0; my actual average pace ended up 1:32.8; in two more weeks, when I do the workout again, my target will be 1:32.5. When I do this workout, I take about 3 ½ minutes recovery (most of it active) between pieces. I don’t set a recovery time on the monitor, but keep track manually. I start each interval from a dead stop, with the flywheel nearly motionless, and use the opportunity to practice racing starts. Not to start as fast as I can, but to see how quickly/smoothly I can settle into a desired pace. I also set the 500m with 250m sub-intervals to see if I pace the piece correctly; my goal being to negative- or even-split (not positive-split). Incidentally, here is an anecdote about the benefits of negative-splitting the individual pieces for this workout. During my coaching years, 8 x 500m was always a popular erg workout, and people were usually pretty jacked to try to get some fast numbers. Without being given specific instructions, the typical strategy for most athletes would be to hammer the first 10-15 strokes as hard as possible, then slowly fade till the end. The final score might be respectable but the technique was not what I was trying to achieve. At some point in the season I would run the workout with some specific guidelines: everyone had to even-split or negative-split each piece; for every piece that had a positive split (no matter how fast it was), they would have to do another until they had 8 pieces that were even- or negative split. I can’t recall anyone ever having to do an extra piece; almost everyone finished significantly faster than they had all season; and most people reported that mentally it was a much more enjoyable experience (and a few people reported that the stress of keeping the pace in check made the experience less enjoyable). [What continues to be puzzling to me is that after that experience, during future workouts without specific guidelines most people reverted back to the fly-and-die approach.]”
FWIW - I intend to collate all of MC’s WP notes into an indexed format and will post a link in the next month or so.
