Does anyone else get slower with high mileage?

Training Advice/Discussion General

6 years ago 11/30/2017 12:35pm EST

I'm on my way to completing my 3rd week of 80 miles during a base building phase and I can definitely tell that my legs feel heavier than when I was still running in the high 50s.

Running this many miles is doable but the overall pace is about 30 sec/mile slower than usual.

How long will it take for me to get used to this mileage and is it a cold hard fact that many people who run every day need to taper or rest periodically in order to do their work justice?

For example, if someone were to ask me to crank out a 5k at this point in time I'm pretty sure i'd run it at least a minute slower than if I was still running about 50mpw

6 years ago 11/30/2017 1:02pm EST

re: lightng

It takes some time to adjust to mileage increases, but it happens. If you are aggressively increasing mileage (did you go from 50-80 right away?) then it will obviously take longer. But eventually your pace re-adjusts to where it was beforehand. In fact, this is a good way of knowing when it's time to raise the mileage again, if that is your aim.

I've gone through many mileage increases in base training and that is how I did it. For example, i would go from 70-80 and stay there until the easy pace lowered to where it was before, then raise again. This is when i knew my body had "absorbed" the mileage increase and it was no longer a challenge in the sense that I was no longer too tired to run my normal easy pace. It is a good way of not overdoing it.

As far as easy weeks go, of course you need to do this periodically as well. I would often make my easy week the week after I had absorbed the previous mileage increase, as a kind of insurance week to ensure I wasn't overdoing it, and also to enable me to feel even fresher when I resume with a new mileage high to start the next week.

6 years ago 11/30/2017 1:12pm EST

re: lightng

lightng wrote:
Running this many miles is doable but the overall pace is about 30 sec/mile slower than usual.

Why would you increase mileage but slow down the pace? Those 2 changes are cancelling each other. You should increase mileage while MAINTAINING your previous training pace. If you can't sustain that, then you have added too much mileage.

6 years ago 11/30/2017 1:33pm EST

re: lollerama

To be completely transparent I am actively trying to lose weight as well so that could be one of the reasons why my pace is slightly more sluggish.

I figure the base phase is probably the best time to lose weight since I am not doing any hard workouts - just sprints/hill work here and there and a short tempo session (20 min) with the bulk of it being easy mileage

6 years ago 11/30/2017 2:28pm EST

re: lightng

Yes, my average daily ("easy") pace when I'm above 100 mpw is much slower than when I'm in the 60-80 range. 30 seconds per mile is about exactly how much slower I'm at. This is true even after having spent more than a year at the higher mileage, running faster workouts & races, etc and it's nothing to be concerned about.

If your workouts and races suck you may have a mileage problem, otherwise who cares how fast your easy runs are.

6 years ago 11/30/2017 2:32pm EST

re: lightng

Yeah I get very slow, because I get injured and have to stop completely.

6 years ago 12/07/2017 10:43pm EST

re: lightng

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