How fast do elite college guys run their tempo runs?

Meant to say how fast

Probably at like your mile race pace.

enter their pr into the mcmillan running calculator

for ex:

14:00 5k gives 4:44 to 4:57 per mile tempo pace.

how fast do they do their easy runs?

Letsrun Ahole wrote:

Probably at like your mile race pace.

I don't think they run 4:07 pace.

4:07/km? That's like 6:38 mile pace. I think some of them might run that slow on their easy days.

That is also interesting to see if they run their easy runs at 6 min pace or 7 min pace. My guess is close to 6 min pace if not under. I know about the McMillan calculator but just wondering if anyone had any stories or info on the topic.

Letsrun Ahole wrote:

4:07/km? That's like 6:38 mile pace. I think some of them might run that slow on their easy days.

sorry but that was poor effort on the comeback. i also dont think they do 8-10 mile tempos at 4:45 pace. my somewhat educated guess is roughly 5:00 mile pace, maybe slightly slower.

heres the deal yo wrote:

Letsrun Ahole wrote:

4:07/km? That's like 6:38 mile pace. I think some of them might run that slow on their easy days.

sorry but that was poor effort on the comeback. i also dont think they do 8-10 mile tempos at 4:45 pace. my somewhat educated guess is roughly 5:00 mile pace, maybe slightly slower.

why don't you think that? where is your educated guess coming from?

Also, a longer tempo run like your 8-10 would be paced towards the 4:57 end of the 4:44 to 4:57 range. A short tempo run (20 minutes) would be 4:44 pace.

I was kinda close to elite once upon a time. I think the important thing about tempos and practice in general is that 'feel' is way more important than how fast you can run these things.

McMillan's calculator would have me (at the slow end) running a bit faster than I would have in practice, but I was a pretty good racer.

My guess is that most college guys would be at the faster end of the calculator because they're a little less patient / a little more aggressive to improve (at least that's how I was in college, I didn't settle down until a few years after).

heres the deal yo wrote:

Letsrun Ahole wrote:

4:07/km? That's like 6:38 mile pace. I think some of them might run that slow on their easy days.

sorry but that was poor effort on the comeback. i also dont think they do 8-10 mile tempos at 4:45 pace. my somewhat educated guess is roughly 5:00 mile pace, maybe slightly slower.

I think if your PR is 4:45 you should go over to joggersworld and hang out with people your speed. This is letsrun!

I run for a top D 1 team with several sub 14 guys amongst others.

1.Evrybody runs easydays based off feel really. some easy day averages are really 6:20, others are pretty damn close to 7's

2.Run pace changes, alot of guys run alone on alot of milage days just so they can ge tthe pace they want. I know top guys that run 5:50-6:00 and others 6:00-6:15

3.Tempos vary as we tend to start out slower in the very start of the season. they go from 5:30's or so to down to 4:50 at the fastest really. also, most tempos are designed to slowly drop time off each mile. Most miles are north of 5:00's though

Hope this helped. And again, my indisclosed program is quite successful. Not that I am though

Also ran D1.

Start at around 5:25-30 and cut down to 5:00, possibly finishing in the high 4:50s if the tempo is on a track or people are cranking.

Easy runs would average anywhere from 5:50 to 6:15 mainly. This sounds fast but we would start at 6:30 pace and the pace would drop throughout the run and would finish fast.

Best guy on our team who was an All-American and made multiple finals in track:

5 mile tempo - 4:40 pace

8 mile tempo - 4:52 pace

These paces were on flat, hard surfaces so adjust accordingly for terrain.

What blows my mind was how good he was and how pedestrian his tempo pace was compared to elite Africans.

Thanks alot guys. The last three posts were exactly the kinda stuff I hope people would share. I have been experimenting with running my easy runs faster as I have noticed the top level D1 guys dont run every easy run at 7 min pace like I used to think was the golden rule. Boy was I in denial. I have ran most easy runs at 6-620 pace doing 80 miles a week in singles and have responded really well to it. I feel I recover much quicker after workouts and I am much more consistent on how I feel day to day.

runnindude wrote:

Thanks alot guys. The last three posts were exactly the kinda stuff I hope people would share. I have been experimenting with running my easy runs faster as I have noticed the top level D1 guys dont run every easy run at 7 min pace like I used to think was the golden rule. Boy was I in denial. I have ran most easy runs at 6-620 pace doing 80 miles a week in singles and have responded really well to it. I feel I recover much quicker after workouts and I am much more consistent on how I feel day to day.

Easy days are about feel not a certain pace, no?

so he ran a 23:20 5 mile for his tempos? he was probably a sub 23:00 guy on xc terrain.... that seems a bit fast unless he was an absolute stud

Holy sh*t this thread is awful! All college programs are different. I'd bet a lot if not most of them don't do 8+ mile tempo runs. The programs that do these workouts build their athletes up to the volume and pace they're doing over months if not years. The pace and volume they're doing doesn't mean anything if you don't know how they got there.

Hot, Hard Facts wrote:

Holy sh*t this thread is awful! All college programs are different. I'd bet a lot if not most of them don't do 8+ mile tempo runs. The programs that do these workouts build their athletes up to the volume and pace they're doing over months if not years. The pace and volume they're doing doesn't mean anything if you don't know how they got there.

thank you! someone gets it.