dadsfadsfdasfdsafdas wrote:
And obviously you don't do the miles at threshold pace because it doesn't give you the response you are looking for. Unless you see a good 16 week program, it is hard to say if a workout is right or not. Rarely are individual workouts an issue. It is always the sequence of them.
In the end this will all come down to if you believe she is a 9:40 runner today or a 10:00.
You are right, threshold would be something different. But there are other workouts to get VO2MAX in than 4 x Mile at VO2MAX with short rest. How about some 400s at 3k pace? Or 6x800 at 3k pace?
Here is Daniel's definition of VO2MAX workouts:
Generally in the range of 95-100% of VO2max or 98-100% of HRmax. Intervals are "hard" but not all-out running by any means. Usually at a pace that you could maintain for about 10-15 minutes in a serious race. Intervals are best if they involve runs of 3 to 5 minutes each (800m and 1000m workbouts are typical), with jog recoveries of similar duration (not necessarily, equal distance); relative to the runs they follow.
So even by his definition, she should have done a 5 min jog recovery. 2.5 min recovery just made it even harder. She essentially used the same jog recovery that would be used for 800m VO2MAX reps (in ~2:30/800, with equal recovery).
Very impressive workout indeed, and we can see she was still highly aerobic during it. It's just the overall training (15 mile LR at 6:11/mi pace, hard hill workout 6 days ago, etc.) that seems to be very intense. If this is a "once-a-month" thing, sure but it seems like her coaches are pushing her repeatedly in a number of different workouts and even long runs. I'm just a bit worried that it's not going to be sustainable in the long term, especially given her injury history.