Neringa's Crazy 8's

Here's an absolutely brutal workout I got from an athlete I follow on Strava. She didn't come up with the name, this is just what I call it. Here's how it goes:

• Warm-up: 2 miles @ an easy pace
• Workout: 8 x 1-mile repeats @ race pace, with 60 seconds of recovery jogging in between
• Cool-down: 5 kilometers @ an easy pace

This is an ingenious workout. First of all, eight one-mile repeats is really hard! But it's even harder when you only give yourself one minute to recover. Holding that pace over the course of a long workout like this is phenomenal training for your body. Not everyone will be capable of doing a workout like this, but for those who are in good enough shape, it's amazing.

And the masterstroke of the workout is the total mileage: 13.1 miles of running, i.e. precisely the length of a half marathon.

It was such a great idea that I just had to try it. I failed my first attempt. On my second attempt, I made it through the warm-up and the workout, but had to bail on the cool-down. I may not be running enough miles to pull off the full workout, but I'm willing to try again!