SRR Track

You must be a SRR member to participate in the workouts regularly but if you are considering track/SRR and would like to check us out, you are welcome to come to a session as a guest.

During the spring, summer, and fall we meet at the Tufts outdoor track (the “Ellis Oval”) on Tuesday evenings. During the winter we meet at the MIT track on Wednesday evenings. Please contact Coach Joe O'Leary if you have any questions about track workouts.

Pace chart is located here. Look up your 5k race time or pace on the far right and you can see your complete list of recommended paces


About our pace terminology:

We use the pacing system designed by legendary coach Jack Daniels. It assigns each runner 3 sets of paces corresponding to a desired intensity. The paces are:

THRESHOLD - About your one-hour race pace

INTERVAL - VO2 max pace. About the pace you could hold in a race that lasts 10-15 minutes

REPEAT - About the pace you could in a race lasting 3-4 minutes

You can determine your pace set using one of the many online calculators. For example, go here and enter a known race distance and time. Then click on the “Training” tab below to see your paces. (I suggest ignoring the “Easy” tab. We don’t use it in workouts and frankly, I find it faster than I like to run on most days)

Tuesday March 26 - 6:30 PM at Tufts

This week, we do the “Tatyana Podznyakova” workout

This workout is one continuous run in which you alternate the pace every 800 meters between THRESHOLD and MARATHON pace.   So, start off at THRESHOLD pace, for 800, switch to MARATHON for 800, back to THRESHOLD, etc.

The total distance is up to you but should be at least 4800 meters.  That will be 6 x 800.    Roughly 3 miles.  However if you are doing a good deal of weekly mileage right now, I urge you to try to continue the workout and for another mile (2 x 800)   That will be 6400 meters

The point of this workout is to force yourself to be able to recover at speed.  Marathon pace is not a jog.  It should be your go marathon pace or the marathon pace that corresponds to your THRESHOLD pace on the Daniels chart.  If you do not know what that is I will bring a copy of the chart for you to look it up at track.

Tuesday April 2 - 6:30 PM at Tufts

Cheap Marathoners: You will do “The Lou” workout. This is a single continuous run of 4800 meters starting off at MARATHON pace.  You will hold that pace for 800 meters at which point you will pick up the pace a bit.  Basically you run each successive 800 meters a total of 4 seconds faster than the previous one.  By the time you finish, you’ll probably be running a bit faster than threshold pace

Everyone Else: Step Down Miles

  • 1 x 1 mile at THRESHOLD (1:00 rest)

  • 1 x 1 mile at THRESHOLD-10 seconds (1:30 rest)

  • 1 x 1 mile at THRESHOLD-20,

    At this point you may declare victory and call the workout done. But if you up for the challenge, see if you can do another mile following the same pattern, (1i.e. take 2:00 rest and run another mile 10 seconds faster than the last one)


    I don’t know if anyone has ever managed to do 5 of these on pace but you are welcome to try… :-)

Tuesday, April 9 - 6:30 PM at Tufts

The Lou workout, as described above

Tuesday April 16 - No Track

Tuesday April 23 - No Track

Tuesday April 30 - No track

Tuesday May 7 - 7:00 PM at MIT

Track will resume this week. Workout ius TBD