One-Hour Workout: A Little VO2 Run Work
This treadmill session adds in just enough VO2 max work to impact your race-day run.
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Every Tuesday we’ll feature a different coach’s workout you can complete in 60 min (or less!).
This week’s workout comes from Marilyn Chychota, a former elite cyclist and triathlete and now coach for Endurance Corner. “The key thing that the research indicates is running faster than VO2 max doesn’t lead to superior adaptations,” she says. “A little goes a long way with this type of training and the fact that we don’t need to crush ourselves really helps the big picture of managing our fatigue/recovery.” Chychota recommends doing this workout on a treadmill.
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Key things to remember:
1. Focus on quickness, not velocity
2. If you lose form, you are either going too fast or have done enough repeats. It’s easy to tell when form is gone on a treadmill because you’ll start pounding the deck!
3. Hold your best form during the quick part of the set as well as during the recovery
Warm-up
15 min easy, aerobic
Then do a ladder from walking up to a steady pace in 1 min steps followed by a powerwalk for a couple minutes before beginning the main set.
Main Set
This is 16 minutes long as 1 min on/1 min off (“Off” minutes are always done at 50 percent of VO2 max)
#1 and #2 are done at 80 percent
#3 onwards is done at VO2 max
Cool-down
End with walking to settle heart rate