Ted Lasso 800s

There are few legacy sessions with more legs than the Yasso 800s workout. In the fall of 2001, Amby Burfoot wrote an article in Runner's World about a session that the magazine's races services manager, Bart Yasso did repeatedly in preparation for a marathon. He'd been doing this session 3-4 times a cycle for over 15 years. It's simple as shit: 10 x 800m in your marathon goal time with tequal rest. So if you want to go sub 3, you do 10 x 800m in 3:00 w/ a 3 min rest. In this episode, we take this session to task. Or, more accurately, I do. I get a little spicy in this one so beware. I have some strong opinions about it. In Bart's defense, he didn't proselytize this session, Burfoot did. & he didn't do it as a predictor session, he did it as a progressive load session, very different animal. So perhaps my ire was misguided. But as I point out repeatedly, I am not banging on about Yasso, I am banging on about the way this session has been appropriated & infantilized. You be the judge. Regardless, we have a lot of fun with this one & we decided to rename the workout...or create an adapted version...I am not really sure. Last week I said "Stories Abound." This week, "Joker's Abound." At least I'm consistent. & speaking of consistency, two notes before we send you into the meat of this conversation: 1.) This episode is a day late to be posted because I didn't get it scheduled correctly before I headed out to the Boston Marathon. What an amazing weekend. But more on that next week. 2.) We added some bonus content. If you listen through to the end, there is a hidden track that actually began this conversation but was so far afield from the main thrust of the topic that we had to cut it. But at the last minute, I thought I should add it as a bonus. Let us know if you like the banter. So, in all it's raging glory, I present to you the episode we call Ted Lasso 800's. Godspeed, my friends, godspeed.