Easy miles and the 2:22 quest

He just went from a 2:29 (boston) to a 2:22. I think he posted some of his workouts leading up to the CIM this weekend on merv.

Measuring potential based on recovery pace per mile won't be accurate.....I know plenty of guys who train at 6:45 pace and struggled to reak 3 hours in a marathon or 18 minutes in a 5K because they run that pace every day. A better indicator of marathon potential would be your threshold pace.

I went from 2:29:50 at Boston to 2:22:03 at CIM (12/8), so 8 months. All my easy runs are between 6:15 to 6:45ish. I just run how I feel on my easy days and don't overdo it (or underdo for that matter). You just have to want it more that anyone else does or you will just (not that it is nothing) be a 2:29 marathoner. The hard work will seperate you from the pack. Keep up the good work.

Dr. Blackjack wrote:

Measuring potential based on recovery pace per mile won't be accurate.....I know plenty of guys who train at 6:45 pace and struggled to reak 3 hours in a marathon or 18 minutes in a 5K because they run that pace every day. A better indicator of marathon potential would be your threshold pace.

I wasn't giving that as a measure of potential. That was a separate question concerning recovery mile pace as I know I tend to work too hard and was curious as to what others ran those types of runs in.

As for threshhold pace I do not have a good idea as I have been neglecting my shorter distances for a couple years. My 10K PR was a 33:15 run during a normal marathon training week right before the start of my taper for the 2:29. My fastest 10-mile tempo run was fairly hard and was only 5:38/mile. Looks like I have great endurance to run a 2:29 with those in mind, so I'm going back to shorter races/faster training this spring to try and bring my paces down as I think that will greatly help my cause.

Miles and miles,

I saw your post of workouts prior to the CIM. The pace you ran your hard workouts even in August were faster than what I feel I can do now. If you had any workouts you found especially helpful in development or any other tips, please email me.

Thanks and congrats on the 2:22!

ahass@umich.edu

If you're going for 2:22, you might as well shoot for the OT qualifying time of sub-2:22... just .04 - 2.3sec/mile faster.

My fellow runner: The bigger the base is, the faster you can do your speed work when you lower the mileage.

Get up early and psyche yourself up, drink a coffee, strap the shoes on no matter what the weather looks like outside. Be TOUGH.

On your morning runs, just go at the pace that the body wants to run, a "steady state" pace. Dont push it unless the body is giving you the signals "LETZ ROCK!"

Get out everymorning for about 90 minutes and you will be ONE TOUGH MUTHAFUCKA in about 2 months.

Your afternoon session should be either intervals, tempo or recovery running, or just another 90 minute set.

Keep in mind this:

EVERY MORNING IN KUNMING, Yoko Shibui (who ran 2;21 at Chicago) gets up and runs 20km in 1 hour 40. I watched her for 2 weeks, and her morning session NEVER CHANGED. You do the pace-math. (that's right, 5min/km or 8 minutes per mile.)

That is just her morning workout. The afternoon workout is what I describe above and yes sometimes she'll do 40-45km in the afternoon on top of the 20km jogging.

Jason

JEH wrote:

If you're going for 2:22, you might as well shoot for the OT qualifying time of sub-2:22... just .04 - 2.3sec/mile faster.

That's actually what I meant...2:21:59....

[quote]JasonInThailand wrote:

Get up early and psyche yourself up, drink a coffee, strap the shoes on no matter what the weather looks like outside. Be TOUGH.

I train in Michigan. Last week I did 13 miles at 7:30 pace that felt like sub-6 because I was slogging through 5 inches of slick stuff. I was doing hill repeats up a hill while people were sledding down it telling me "you're the man!". Last spring's 2:36 was a botched 2:32 attempt because the weather went to hell and I was hypothermic the last 15k. Trust me, desire and toughness will not be my limiting factors. That will probably be threshhold pace.

Get out everymorning for about 90 minutes and you will be ONE TOUGH MUTHAFUCKA in about 2 months.

--I'm working up to that one...Pretty hard on a research grad student's schedule but I'm getting there. Right now I'm trying to build up a good base and the ability to handle 100+ miles every week before I start piling on intensity.

Temps will be in the forties for the next week in Michigan.

I ran 140 mile weeks in Windsor across from Detroit because

I wanted it. Some dirt roads get plowed, and they are great

for training.

My advice is to not keep track of your pace on those easy runs at all, or if you do, to avoid any sort of "enforecement." Why would you? Why is it important to have a "lower limit" in terms of how slow you're willing to run, often the magical 7:00-per-mile barrier? This is no prescription for being in tune with your physical self.

If you need a recovery day, run easy. If you feel somewhat rested, run somewhat easy. Tell yourself, if necessary, that "if 7:00 pave was good enough for [insert world-class marathoner] on easy days, it's good enough for me." (Obviously these guys did and do more than jog around, but that's not the point.)

This advice is not a cop-out. As you build your mileage to previously unexplored levels, you'll have days on which 6:15 pace is an absolute breeze and 7:00 pace is an ass-dragging chore. If you're going to worry about your pace, worry about it during focused workouts.

A lot of runners I know in the sub-2:30 range report the pace of their easy runs as a matter of course, but they don't obligate themselves to adhere to any specific pace.

Keep in mind also that while it's convenient to compartmentalize runs into "easy," "hard," "tempo," and so on, there's a lot of overlap and this is increasingly true during a non-racing or low-key-racing stretch of training in which your main aim is to get stronger than you've ever been. It's no more "wrong" to cut loose on a supposed easy day than it is to run 7:30's or whatever on a day when your legs are shot. People thrive on different overall workloads, but the one thing that seems universally true is that quite a bit of supposedly slow running can be parlayed very quickly into some fast workouts once you've cut back in anticipation of a few key races. It's counterintuitive to some extent, but true.

Right on! I follow this principle and it has worked. When I was trying to build my mileage up over 100 I had some days where I needed to run 8 minute miles on my recovery days. After a few days with 7-7:30 range miles my body felt recovered enough to go out and hit the 2nd half of a 12 miler at 5:30 pace ( I called it a tempo ). The disparity between these runs is immense, but it was what my body required. If I had listened to all the prescribed times of all the posters, runners of the past, or coaches I couldn't have handled the mileage. My body simply cannot handle 6 to 6:15 pace day in and day out. I think the idea of not forcing your body to do what it does not want to is imperative. I am not saying don't run hard if you can, or never run hard because you shouldn't, just listen to your body though. If you have the guts to go hard, you have to have the guts to go easy sometimes.

Rookie question - What's "merv"?

DC

Put away the watch on those days. I usually time them by looking at the clock on the wall when I leave and when I come back.

My old college coach used to say that for the "in-between days," at the end of a 10-mi run you shouldn't feel fresh as a daisy but you shouldn't feel exhausted either. And if you're havign a good day, whatever the "schedule" says, sometimes it feels great to just let it rip, even if you're untimed -- sports are supposed to be fun, and running is great fun when you're going good.

Finally, dismiss the idea that the improvement you describe is too much within a year. An open mind can only help you. There's also a learning-curve effect at work too, that you can benefit from. If you stay healthy and can train consistently, good things can happen.

Good luck with everything

Your easy miles should allow you to recover. The key workouts are the quality workouts. So if you need to slow down your easy runs to keep the quality up, just do so.

My easy running is probably on the slow end of things: my average easy run pace, once I warm up, is probably no faster than 7:30.

This morning I averaged 9-minute pace, because my legs just didn't feel like moving any faster. But I did a hard 9 mile fartlek yesterday, so that's fine. And I did manage to break 2:20 on this kind of training (with a 9-minute-pace day at least every other week), so the slow easy miles don't seem to hurt.