Yes, there’s been a bit of discussion of hard start intervals over on this thread.
As it happens this Tuesday I was planning a 4x8 on the turbo, but when I got home, the room felt really humid and I realised I’d left my earphones at work. Disaster!
So instead I went outside and did hill repeats, roughly a 7x3 vo2 session. I did a hard start on each rep to try to get my heart rate up, and then went on feel and heart rate for the rest of the interval. I ended up with a lot less total time at 90%+ maxHR than on a 4x8 session, but it felt good and hard nonetheless. And if I had stayed indoors, I’d have probably thrown in the towel after 2 intervals…