Easy days easy - a dangerous mindset?

No problem, here it is. Its a gem.

https://erichfelbabel.com/2017/09/21/eliud-kipchoge-full-training-log-leading-up-to-marathon-world-record-attempt/

Lets take the long run on Aug 17.2017:

40km in 2h26min, that is 03:39 min/km, and this is around 70% VO2max. So clear below Aerobic Threshold, which is for Elite runners at 79-80% VO2max.

What i do not know is, if this is a continous run, or are there some strides or short intervals in it.

well,, wrote:

truth be told. wrote:

Wejo's Why I sucked in College should be required reading for newbies.

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2006/09/wejo-speaks-why-i-sucked-in-college/

Not that stupid article again. Wejo started to run insane mileage (up to 170 mpw) at altitude at a very slow pace. Briefly got fast and then had his career cut short by injuries. Not exactly a model for good training.

Well said! In fact cleared up a lot about that case.

A sub-14 guy races at 5k at sub 4:30 mile pace. Add 33% and he's at 6:00 mile pace. A 16 minute 5k runner goes 5:08-9 pace. Add 33% and he's at 6:51ish per mile. So, that should roughly be easy pace (7 minute miles aren't far off at all) and recovery pace should be considerably slower. Kenyans will do recovery pace quite a bit. Some of those runs will turn into hard progression runs by the end. It is all by feel and most of it on soft dirt roads--easy to recover on them, not much pounding.

Thanks for the link

Ft runners having a slower easy pace is interesting... Whilst logically I can see the reason why its recommended, in practice I find speed based runners tend to end up doing their easier runs quicker, I assume because theyre doing less volume and it probably takes them longer to feel what effort they're working at.

all natural wrote:

I see the opposite. Everyone I follow on strava goes 6:30-7:15 “easy” yet they’re all slower than me on race day. I’m not afraid nor do I care if my easy days are anywhere near 8-9 minute pace.

EXACTLY!

Female runner here, not elite, but not bad (16:xx 5k consistently, best under 16).

I do a LOT of my miles slower than 7:30/mile, many slower than 8. On Strava I have had comments of “I don’t know how you’re so much faster than me because you run a minute a mile slower than me most days!”.

They don’t realize or want to admit that:

A) I run more mileage they do

And

B) I run more workouts than they do

Running mostly at 7-8/mile and then workouts at the appropriate paces works much better than running 645/mile every run.

Copper, I think that these faster paces (5k + 33%) might be something to grow into as a mature runner, especially for a faster runner who gets so much speed out of the quality workouts. For a long time, linear progression can be keeping same easy pace, but increasing MPW every year. you go 50 then 60 then 70, until you reach 100-120. Once you reach that final volume marker, linear progression is now going a quicker pace as you get stronger.

My best runner was fairly similar to you in high school (PRs of sub 15:50, 9:30s, mid 4:20s, 2:32 in the 1k, 51.6 split). He was robbed of senior outdoor, so some of these could have possibly been better. His senior year, he lived in the 7:45 to 8:00 range for easy runs. I have seen as he's progressed into his second year of college, he is more like 7:10-7:15 pace on a daily basis.

On the flipside, that same year, I went to work with another school at the same time, during winter.They had a kid who was basically an 18:00 runner, who insisted on running every mile at 6:30 to 6:50. Everyday I would plead with him to slow it down, but as he got into the run, he just couldn't help himself. I would talk to him about my other runner, who he looked up to, and how he ran everything at 8:00, and he still couldn't understand how the faster pace wasn't helping to close the gap and the sub 16 kid. Unfortunately, I couldn't coach 4 years of bad training out of him in 3 months.

Are you kidding me?

As a guy with personal bests of 16:20 and 9:15, 7:30 per mile is a very appropriate easy pace for me. I might run faster on an easy day only if I'm feeling absolutely great – not just good – and if I don't have a hard session planned tomorrow. Hard workout or heavy dinner the day before, bad weather, hilly course - all of these may actually make 7:30 harder than I would like to run on an easy day. If those factors combine, even 8 can feel pretty tough.

Two things are probably true here…majority of sub elite runners you see posting 6:00 pace runs several days a week on Strava are overtraining and the pros who do a ton of miles at 7:30 (Tinman…cough…Tinman) are under training. Easy pace should be marathon pace plus/minus 60-90 seconds. That’s sort of a hard pace for someone who’s never run a marathon to lock onto, especially if you’re doing 5k/10k training where you’re training to run faster anyway.

I'm 64 and very rarely run slower than low 8:0x - On the other hand I don't do more than 40 miles per week at most, and I'm only seriously interested in running 3000m-5000m.

I tend just to cut back on distance when I have a recovery day (these days about 4 a week!). So I'll do a couple of interval sessions and a 'long' run (up to 75 min) a week, with the other days at 3-5miles at 7:30 to 8:0x. I run the 'long' run of 8-10 miles at 7:30 or quicker, so the slowest/shortest day is the next day, which if I'm really tired is the 3 miles at 8:0x.

No idea if this is the best way to train, but I've been running about 50 years, and my age graded times are better now than when I was younger. If I had to run 60-90 sec slower than marathon pace I'd have a stride lengths of about 6 ins and I think for me it would be totally form destroying (and a miserable as heck - I can't imagine running 9:00 miles, unless it was a long run on trails).

Despite the fact that the OPs opinion/experience is literally the exact opposite to everyone else who lives on this planet this thread has turned into a good on.

I run my easy pace by HR and try to average 145 BPMish. Recovery days are 135ish. I find that easy is around 7:30 give or take 20 seconds depending on fitness/weather etc. Mid 15 5k type with poor aerobic development for reference.

runs easier wrote:

If you focus on increasing the pace of your easy runs, mileage and workouts will suffer resulting in either underperforming, over training and/or injuries. Like we all know someone in high school who did all their easy runs at a 6:30 pace but when it came to workouts and races they did not race nor did workouts that suggest they should be doing easy runs at that pace. And often what's happening is they're doing all their easy runs in terms of heart rate in zone 3. Which physiologically speaking has no real benefits like doing it in zone 1-2 or doing workouts in zone 4-5 in terms of heart rate(now wait for some boomer to be triggered I'm talking about heart rate because he did all his easy runs in the 70s at his marathon pace).

Cue SDSU Aztec. I think he once said it was physically impossible for him to run slower than 6:40 pace. Kinda doubt he was a 14 flat guy.

I think OP just found out that sub-14 guys run their easy days faster than 16:30 guys. That makes sense to me. I don't think a 16:30 guy is being held back by 7:00 miles on their easy days. Someone running 100mpw that runs 9-flat for 3k is more/less at their potential & could probably be an absolute monster with better genes. It is what it is. Science says easy days easy makes sense. Workout days are where you make your gains. Running in the grey zone, especially for a 16:30 type guy, is actually probably what's preventing them from improving since they're tired for every workout. I see the opposite trend where people in that range hit everything decently fast. A 16:30 guy shouldn't be running 6:30 pace on easy days imo.

Easy pace varies a lot based on routes and also shoes. If you have some hills, the climbing is tough and otoh you don't want to smash your legs running downwards.

With firmer shoes also, you'll be quite beaten up if increasing pace.

IF you run very fast on easy days, you're probably insecure about yourself and need to prove something. Either on Strava or to others. There is no need to run faster when the aerobic benefits are the same, but recovery is slower and you'll be more tired in your daily life.

Run6556 wrote:

There is no need to run faster when the aerobic benefits are the same, but recovery is slower and you'll be more tired in your daily life.

The aerobic benefits can not be the same. But maybe only marginal different for getting better, but improportional more taxing.

This is the basic idea of the polarized training, like Kipchoge does. But if someone hasn't 10 trainung units per week, but e.g 6/week maybe that polarized approach is not the best option for that athlete.

The easy run can not be seen isolated.

lexel wrote:

Run6556 wrote:

There is no need to run faster when the aerobic benefits are the same, but recovery is slower and you'll be more tired in your daily life.

The aerobic benefits can not be the same. But maybe only marginal different for getting better, but improportional more taxing.

This is the basic idea of the polarized training, like Kipchoge does. But if someone hasn't 10 trainung units per week, but e.g 6/week maybe that polarized approach is not the best option for that athlete.

The easy run can not be seen isolated.

That is a little bit of what I was getting at. I'm 64-years-old and train either 6 or 7 days a week, so just 6 or 7 sessions.

With that only coming to about 40 miles a week, I can't spend much time on easy runs. So, I did one of my harder sessions 3x2000m at about 6:48 pace with 1000m recoveries at 7:50 pace yesterday, and a recovery run of 5 miles at 7:32 today. The average HR today on a fairly hilly run was 121. Often if I run at 7:40 pace, the HR for the run will be as low a 116.

I don't think at this point, I'd gain much toddling along at 9:00 miling three or four times a week.

Maybe it also helps that I've been running for more than 50 years, much of it high-intensity, so there are probably a lot of long-term adaptions.

Only on this message board is a 60-minute 10-mile runner considered "mediocre."

Maybe true in some small village in the Rift Valley, but in America?? Please.

Just to echo multiple posters above. I also see the exact opposite. People going way too hard on recovery days. I like Tinman's rule of thumb for easy/aerobic days: no faster than 2 minutes slower than 5k pace you could run THAT DAY.

People violate that all the time to their own demise. Even saw some pros destroy their fall marathon doing hard every day.

Bump