10:00/mi ONLY runs or 5:00/mi ONLY runs: which is better for the marathon? We intend to find out.

Sloppy Joe wrote:

WEEK 1 TRAINING UPDATE (JUNE 10-16)ME

• Distance: 15.46 miles
• Time: 2h 35m
• Avg Pace: 10:01/mi
• Number of Runs: 4
• Elevation: 1196 ft
• Violations: 1

Observations:

Training is off to a cracking start. I ran a little less than I had hoped to this week, but that's mostly because my whole weekend was taken up by packing up and moving across state lines and into a new city and a new apartment for my job that started today. Some observations/thoughts on the training:

10:00/mi is slow. Painfully slow. This will suck. In fact, its actually somewhat difficult. Not physically speaking necessary, but the difference between 9:30/mi and 10:30/mi is almost imperceptible, and my GPS watch has a hard time telling that difference too. Satellite accuracy seems to suffer at such a slow pace.

My HR is higher than I would have expected. During track I would average 145-155 bpm for ~7:00/mi on hilly terrain. At 10:00 I'm around 125-135 bpm. At the same time, my ventilatory rate is super low - I can run breathing entirely through my nose at a relaxed rate. Whether or not the HR/breathing discrepancy is bug or a feature is undetermined

I also had a thought about our pace margins - while we each have a buffer of 30 sec/mile for splits, Vinny has a margin of error of 10%. Mine is 5%. These slim margins resulted in the first violation of the challenge: on Thursday, I opened my run with a 9:41 mile. Oops.

VINNY*Stats include WU/CD

• Distance: 3.08 miles
• Time: 19m 55s
• Avg Pace: 6:27/mi
• Number of Runs: 3
• Elevation: 92 ft
• Violations: 0

Observations

When asked for his thoughts and observations on his training so far, Vinny had only this to say: "Summary is that I have yet to run more than 0.5 miles at 5:00/mi." When pressed for more, he remarked, "Yeah, I think its gonna be pretty impossible for Joe to win or even be remotely competitive." Ever the optimist.

Sloppy Joe wrote:

"Alright, I was thinking about this on my run today: you either have to run every run at 5:00/mi pace, or every run at 10:00/mi pace. You are training for a marathon. Which gets you the better time?"

So read the message from a former teammate in our XC alumni group chat. Debate quickly ensued.

"Easy, 5:00/mi - just break it up into reps," I replied. "Infinite threshold glitch."

"No, only one run per day," he clarified, "and no breaks allowed."

After some back and forth, I settled on 10:00/mi. It's simple physiology: the marathon is a long race, and mileage is king. Just run huge volumes and you'll easily beat someone running 5:00/mi 20 miles per week.

Others chimed in, gave their opinion. Enter Vinny.

"I think 5:00/mi wins and that's a hill I'll die on," he declared.

"Well, you're just wrong," I retorted.

Barely a moment later, Vinny replied - "I'll bet you $100 I can beat you in a marathon if I only train 5:00/mi or faster and you only train 10:00/mi or slower."

I was shocked. In all the years I've known him, I had never known Vinny to bet that kind of money. "I'll bet you a dollar..." was the common refrain back in college, a wager often followed by an outrageous challenge easily worth hundreds of times more money. But today: one hundred dollars. This meant Vinny was confident.

I texted back.

"I'll take that bet."

We immediately began negotiating rules and terms, with our other teammates moderating. No cross training allowed. We would each have pace buffers. There was some contentious back and forth about limitations on hills in the 10:00/mi runner's training. So on and so forth. We identified and plugged every loophole we could think of.

In 3-4 months time, we'll meet at an agreed upon marathon to race head to head and settle the debate once and for all. Whoever beats the other will win a cool $100, so the stakes are astoundingly moderate to low.

We'll use this thread to continually give updates on our training, thoughts on our progress, and - eventually - report the results. In the meantime, review the rules, peruse our competitor profiles, and debate among yourselves on who will win. I will also attempt to clarify any questions.

THE RULES

1. One run per day; no doubles.
2. All runs must be continuous; no reps.
3. Instantaneous pace cannot exceed pace limit by more than 30 sec/mile (i.e. at no point may Vinny run slower than 5:30/mi, nor me faster than 9:30/mi)
4. No single mile split (or fraction of a mile) may exceed the pace limit by more than 10 sec/mile (i.e. Vinny's slowest allowable split is 5:10; my fastest allowable split is 9:50).
5. I may not abuse vertical gain outside of reasonable geographic conditions.
6. I may not do strides.
7. Vinny is allotted 400m each for warm up and cool down for injury prevention purposes.
8. I am allotted 400m of drills per day.
9. Both competitors may do weight training, but no other forms of cross training

THE COMPETITORS

Vinny, the 5:00/mi runner

Back in his prime, Vinny was the school record holder of our university in multiple events, boasting PRs of sub-8:15 in the 3K and sub-14:00 in the 5K, was a D1 all-region and P5 all-conference runner in cross, and once ran a 3:04 marathon while consuming twelve (12) standard drink's worth of alcohol en route (you can read more about that exploit in a past thread). But that was two years ago. Today, you're much more likely to see Vinny on the local rec league circuit dunking on middle aged dads than on the track.

Me, the 10:00/mi runner

I'm more recently removed from my running prime. Just this past May I completed my 6th and final year of collegiate eligibility. I have more modest achievements, having run a sub-14:30 5K PR in April and earning all-conference (G5) honors in both the track 10K and cross. I did however, once beat Vinny in an outdoor 3K race at a March meet of exactly zero consequence. Also of note: Vinny never won a high school state championship - I won 3. The states we lived in don't matter and will not be revealed.

TL;DR - For the next 3-4 months, I will be doing all of my runs at 10:00/mi or slower; my old teammate will be doing all of his runs at 5:00/mi. We will then race a marathon and see who wins.

Grassrunner wrote:

Sloppy Joe wrote:

"Alright, I was thinking about this on my run today: you either have to run every run at 5:00/mi pace, or every run at 10:00/mi pace. You are training for a marathon. Which gets you the better time?"

So read the message from a former teammate in our XC alumni group chat. Debate quickly ensued.

"Easy, 5:00/mi - just break it up into reps," I replied. "Infinite threshold glitch."

"No, only one run per day," he clarified, "and no breaks allowed."

After some back and forth, I settled on 10:00/mi. It's simple physiology: the marathon is a long race, and mileage is king. Just run huge volumes and you'll easily beat someone running 5:00/mi 20 miles per week.

Others chimed in, gave their opinion. Enter Vinny.

"I think 5:00/mi wins and that's a hill I'll die on," he declared.

"Well, you're just wrong," I retorted.

Barely a moment later, Vinny replied - "I'll bet you $100 I can beat you in a marathon if I only train 5:00/mi or faster and you only train 10:00/mi or slower."

I was shocked. In all the years I've known him, I had never known Vinny to bet that kind of money. "I'll bet you a dollar..." was the common refrain back in college, a wager often followed by an outrageous challenge easily worth hundreds of times more money. But today: one hundred dollars. This meant Vinny was confident.

I texted back.

"I'll take that bet."

We immediately began negotiating rules and terms, with our other teammates moderating. No cross training allowed. We would each have pace buffers. There was some contentious back and forth about limitations on hills in the 10:00/mi runner's training. So on and so forth. We identified and plugged every loophole we could think of.

In 3-4 months time, we'll meet at an agreed upon marathon to race head to head and settle the debate once and for all. Whoever beats the other will win a cool $100, so the stakes are astoundingly moderate to low.

We'll use this thread to continually give updates on our training, thoughts on our progress, and - eventually - report the results. In the meantime, review the rules, peruse our competitor profiles, and debate among yourselves on who will win. I will also attempt to clarify any questions.

THE RULES

1. One run per day; no doubles.
2. All runs must be continuous; no reps.
3. Instantaneous pace cannot exceed pace limit by more than 30 sec/mile (i.e. at no point may Vinny run slower than 5:30/mi, nor me faster than 9:30/mi)
4. No single mile split (or fraction of a mile) may exceed the pace limit by more than 10 sec/mile (i.e. Vinny's slowest allowable split is 5:10; my fastest allowable split is 9:50).
5. I may not abuse vertical gain outside of reasonable geographic conditions.
6. I may not do strides.
7. Vinny is allotted 400m each for warm up and cool down for injury prevention purposes.
8. I am allotted 400m of drills per day.
9. Both competitors may do weight training, but no other forms of cross training

THE COMPETITORS

Vinny, the 5:00/mi runner

Back in his prime, Vinny was the school record holder of our university in multiple events, boasting PRs of sub-8:15 in the 3K and sub-14:00 in the 5K, was a D1 all-region and P5 all-conference runner in cross, and once ran a 3:04 marathon while consuming twelve (12) standard drink's worth of alcohol en route (you can read more about that exploit in a past thread). But that was two years ago. Today, you're much more likely to see Vinny on the local rec league circuit dunking on middle aged dads than on the track.

Me, the 10:00/mi runner

I'm more recently removed from my running prime. Just this past May I completed my 6th and final year of collegiate eligibility. I have more modest achievements, having run a sub-14:30 5K PR in April and earning all-conference (G5) honors in both the track 10K and cross. I did however, once beat Vinny in an outdoor 3K race at a March meet of exactly zero consequence. Also of note: Vinny never won a high school state championship - I won 3. The states we lived in don't matter and will not be revealed.

TL;DR - For the next 3-4 months, I will be doing all of my runs at 10:00/mi or slower; my old teammate will be doing all of his runs at 5:00/mi. We will then race a marathon and see who wins.

Interesting experiment. It got me thinking, would you be willing to throw in a few shorter races as you're approaching marathon race date, such as a 5K, 10K, and half? Perhaps some interesting results regarding the "break-even" point on which training approach becomes the more successful as a function of race distance will be gleaned (if indeed, one approach - hypothesizing the 5 min/mile training - is better for the shorter distances, up to certain point).

Sloppy Joe wrote:

"Alright, I was thinking about this on my run today: you either have to run every run at 5:00/mi pace, or every run at 10:00/mi pace. You are training for a marathon. Which gets you the better time?"

So read the message from a former teammate in our XC alumni group chat. Debate quickly ensued.

"Easy, 5:00/mi - just break it up into reps," I replied. "Infinite threshold glitch."

"No, only one run per day," he clarified, "and no breaks allowed."

After some back and forth, I settled on 10:00/mi. It's simple physiology: the marathon is a long race, and mileage is king. Just run huge volumes and you'll easily beat someone running 5:00/mi 20 miles per week.

Others chimed in, gave their opinion. Enter Vinny.

"I think 5:00/mi wins and that's a hill I'll die on," he declared.

"Well, you're just wrong," I retorted.

Barely a moment later, Vinny replied - "I'll bet you $100 I can beat you in a marathon if I only train 5:00/mi or faster and you only train 10:00/mi or slower."

I was shocked. In all the years I've known him, I had never known Vinny to bet that kind of money. "I'll bet you a dollar..." was the common refrain back in college, a wager often followed by an outrageous challenge easily worth hundreds of times more money. But today: one hundred dollars. This meant Vinny was confident.

I texted back.

"I'll take that bet."

We immediately began negotiating rules and terms, with our other teammates moderating. No cross training allowed. We would each have pace buffers. There was some contentious back and forth about limitations on hills in the 10:00/mi runner's training. So on and so forth. We identified and plugged every loophole we could think of.

In 3-4 months time, we'll meet at an agreed upon marathon to race head to head and settle the debate once and for all. Whoever beats the other will win a cool $100, so the stakes are astoundingly moderate to low.

We'll use this thread to continually give updates on our training, thoughts on our progress, and - eventually - report the results. In the meantime, review the rules, peruse our competitor profiles, and debate among yourselves on who will win. I will also attempt to clarify any questions.

THE RULES

1. One run per day; no doubles.
2. All runs must be continuous; no reps.
3. Instantaneous pace cannot exceed pace limit by more than 30 sec/mile (i.e. at no point may Vinny run slower than 5:30/mi, nor me faster than 9:30/mi)
4. No single mile split (or fraction of a mile) may exceed the pace limit by more than 10 sec/mile (i.e. Vinny's slowest allowable split is 5:10; my fastest allowable split is 9:50).
5. I may not abuse vertical gain outside of reasonable geographic conditions.
6. I may not do strides.
7. Vinny is allotted 400m each for warm up and cool down for injury prevention purposes.
8. I am allotted 400m of drills per day.
9. Both competitors may do weight training, but no other forms of cross training

THE COMPETITORS

Vinny, the 5:00/mi runner

Back in his prime, Vinny was the school record holder of our university in multiple events, boasting PRs of sub-8:15 in the 3K and sub-14:00 in the 5K, was a D1 all-region and P5 all-conference runner in cross, and once ran a 3:04 marathon while consuming twelve (12) standard drink's worth of alcohol en route (you can read more about that exploit in a past thread). But that was two years ago. Today, you're much more likely to see Vinny on the local rec league circuit dunking on middle aged dads than on the track.

Me, the 10:00/mi runner

I'm more recently removed from my running prime. Just this past May I completed my 6th and final year of collegiate eligibility. I have more modest achievements, having run a sub-14:30 5K PR in April and earning all-conference (G5) honors in both the track 10K and cross. I did however, once beat Vinny in an outdoor 3K race at a March meet of exactly zero consequence. Also of note: Vinny never won a high school state championship - I won 3. The states we lived in don't matter and will not be revealed.

TL;DR - For the next 3-4 months, I will be doing all of my runs at 10:00/mi or slower; my old teammate will be doing all of his runs at 5:00/mi. We will then race a marathon and see who wins.