Arie's Running Blog

It is ok to run the recovery part really slowly, but I think you should cut them back to 800 meters instead of a full mile you are recovering too much between miles. If you work on 800 m speed it will help your overall speed, but it really depends on what you are training for which you should focus on, my training schedule calls for my 800m to be about 5 secs/800 faster than my mile workout pace - so even though they are shorter they are actually harder for me (but I really don't like 800s so maybe they will be better for you). 5 x mile w/800 recovery is easier for me than 10 x 800 w/ 400 recovery. Another good workout (but you would have to do this on the track) is 6-8 x 1200 w/200 recovery - this really helps with leg turnover. You can lack overall leg speed and still do well in the half-to-full marathon if you have stamina (which you can build doing tempo runs and long progression runs). You will improve if you keep doing these mile repeats (I took about 4 secs/mile off of mine in a month).