McMillan's Even Steven

Tuesday morning Dale, Joel and I have met off and on for track workouts. I am hoping that we can make it more of a weekly meeting. I talked with Dale last night and he confirmed that he would be there. Then he said, "You pick the workout Karl." That can be dangerous, although Dale and I are both 9 days post OC marathon so I didn't want to do anything too crazy.

I decided to try a workout that Greg McMillan wrote on an email called Even Steven. He recommends this workout when you need a down week or maybe don't have time to get in some hard workouts, or just need a "fun recovery workout." We seemed to fall into that last category this week. It also stresses all energy systems. Here is the breakdown.
After a warm up (I did 1.5 miles)
10 minutes at MP
2 minutes Easy
8 minutes at HMP
4 minutes Easy
6 minutes at 10k pace
6 minutes Easy
4 minutes at 5k pace
8 minutes easy
2 minutes faster than 5k pace
10 minutes cool down.

The workout totals 60 minutes and each faster workbout ends on a multiple of 10 so it is easy to follow on your watch.

We made it through and covered 8 miles in the hour.

Things I like about this workout:
1. It allows you to ease into the workout at slower speeds.
2. You are supposed to pace by percieved effort and not worry about splits.
3. You have to run hard on semi tired legs.
4. It did feel like I got a good workout in just an hour.

Things I didn't like about this workout:
1. You don't spend too much time at one pace.
2. There is plenty of rest in between.

I would recommend trying this workout during a recovery week or during a base phase to just get a small taste of running at different speeds. It is more like an appitizer sampler of all your different race speeds. I would not do this workout during specific marathon training or within a month of any road race, as there are better more specific workouts to be done.