HADD, HodgieSan, etc.

I know you weren't asking me, but it seems to me that you're running everything too quickly. I'm probably in 17:30 shape right now for the 5K and last week I did 2 x 4 miles. The first was at 6:30 pace, the 2nd at 6:20 pace. It felt like a pretty solid pace, it definitely got me breathing heavily. If I had to RACE 10 miles, maybe I could have maintained this pace, maybe not.

19 min 5K = 6:04 pace?

I don't know how you're doing 10 mile tempo runs at 6:30 pace.

You should be able to keep that pace up for 10 miles pretty easy. If not then you're probably not a 17:30 5K runner. A 17:30 5K is about 1:00:15 for a 10 miles. An 18:50 5K equates to 1:05:00 for 10 miles. I think my Lactate threshold is pretty good, but my VO2max or my anaerobic capacity is not very good, becasue the 10 miles at 6:30-6:35 pace isn't a race type effort. It's a comfortably hard effort where my heart rate stays around 164-170. That's why I was asking HADD the question. I'm trying to figure out whether or not I need to add some faster 3K type stuff and some shorter intervals or keep my longer intervals going for now.

But thanks for your input anyway.

Suggestion:

faster reps.

3-4 x 1 mile 5:30-6:00.

2x2m 6:00 pace.

12x200m 40 secs. approx. 200m rec.

12x300m 55 secs approx. 100m rec.

You are running your mile reps @ 6:00 pace, 18:30 for 5k, no?

Just kep plugging, if you feel unduly tired skip the intervals for that week and just go for moderate pace runs.

Thanks Hodgie-san,

Yes I am running mile repeats at 6:00 pace. That's why I was wandering whether or not I should up the pace for my intervals, or maybe add some shorter stuff. Thanks for the advice.

Hodgie,

Those 300s look a lot faster than the 200s,with a lot less recovery.Are those 2 seperate workouts or do on same workout?(12x200 then 12x300)

You didn't ask me either, but something I find valuable for 5K prep is some reps at 5K pace. Hodgie has you there for his mile repeats. How about locking them in at 5:45-5:50 with a little more recovery than your 2 minutes? Or cut them to 1200s at 4:18 (easy to check this pace - 43 per 200). I believe this also ought to correspond with your VO2Max pace, more or less.

1) shorten the tempo run and/or run more of them

2) shitcan the 3 x 2 mile until you're able to run them faster

3) add hills or shorter reps 200-300 meters

good luck

Two seperate workouts.

runfortheson: I think you need to forget everything that you think you know about running. Why would you think that "all indications were that 5:50 pace was well within my range"? I mean, you are doing mile repeats 10-15 seconds slower per mile than your goal? And what is the point of the 10 mile tempo? Why not do one 20-30 minute tempo per week instead? I mean if that's good enough for Tom McArdle I don't know why it wouldn't be for a 19 min 5k person. You're not as open to advice as you may think. If you don't believe me, re-read that 2nd post you made on this thread. I'm telling you, forget everything and get a good coach. If you are over 1 minute off your goal something is seriously wrong whether you want to admit it or not.

I like the trusty 5 x 1000 with a jog recovery (200-400). You probably should aim for somewhere just under 4:30(6:00 pace) for each 1000. If this doesn't work for you then I agree with malmo. Drop the longer stuff for the moment, do some shorter intervals, and get yourself some speed.

I'm very open to avice. Then 10 mile tempo run is from advice that I received on here, and so are the 1 mile repeats. Te reason they are run at that pace is because that is just a tad faster than 10K race pace which is what I was told they needed to be at. The 10 mile tempo run is suppose to be a marathon pace run, i.e 5K +40 sec or so. This was advice I was also given. that's why I'm soliciting more advice because this part of my training, from advice that I've been given is for base building. The indications, I felt were right on, because I ran a relatively east 10K a month before at 6:15 pace.

As far as Tom goes, I'm sure those work super for him, if that wha he does. I don't know Tom, have never talked to Tom, and therefore, never received any advice from Tom. If I had then I probably would have tried some of his suggestions. I'm just trying to incorporate alot of what I read here into my workouts. I've run in the 15:45 range for 5K before, which is by no means fast, but being alot older now, I'm trying some different things to see if I can get back to those times of yesteryear. Thanks for you reply and if you know Tom or know where he posts advice at, then I would, by all means, love to read what he has to say. Thanks for your input and God bless.

islander,

I assume you mean the 1000's at a 3:45 pace. (4:30 would be for 1200's)

malmo's advice

+(for fun and maybe a suprise)

go race another 5 or get someone to pace you in a tt on the track

do you do another lap?

or was the course a little to long.if it was on the roads i would forget it and hit the track for something accurate

there is no way you shouldnt be in the 18:00's

Okay. For some rather arcane legal reasons I had to go back to my hometown for a week and was nowhere near a computer. Let me try and catch up with what has been going on. (Did a search to see if my name had come up recently).

RunForTheSON,

You have been doing well. As you have noted the 10k was relatively easy (indicating your aerobic system is beginning to get well trained). It was not a hang-on affair from 4 miles onwards. You ran at 6.20m/m (39.20)

You then jumped into a 5k and barely broke 19 mins and were disappointed with the time. Now someone who runs 10k at 6.20m/m, should expect to run 5k no better than 15-20 secs per mile faster (better runners may only be 12 secs/mile faster).

So, someone who ran 6.20 for 10k should expect to run ~6.05m/m for 5k (18.51). Presumably around where you finished. So your 5k was where your 10k predicted.

I am hopefully going to get into this in more detail in another thread to Joe Blow, but all this training you have been doing is just base training, it has not been designed to get you into 5k (or 10k) race shape.

So, see yourself as having just completed phase 1. Distance is not a problem now, you can run a long run of 18 miles and 10 miles at a good lick, (note that a 17.30 5k guy thought 10m in 65.00 was tough, showing that he is not well-trained aerobically. You know it isn?t tough if you are trained right). But you are not race fast.

After base training, you must then move into phase 2. Which will involve 3 things. (First begin by deciding what you are training towards; mile PR, 5k PR, marathon PR, because that will decide what you are about to do).

In phase 2 you must think like this. 3 things to do each week:

1. Do some work at race pace

2. Do some work faster than race pace

3. Protect the LT you have already built up

So, let?s say you wish to go for a 5k PR (or age PR). You need to start doing some running each week at 5k pace. Here you might begin with 1k repeats (with slightly less than equal time recovery). Soon as you can, increase them to 1200s and even 1600s. If you can run 4 x 1 mile at 5k race pace with 2.00-2.30 recovery you can put them together in a race.

Do some faster work. This can be at 1500m (short intervals of 200-400m) to 3k pace (longer intervals 600-800m).

Be careful. You are not trying to hammer these. No crawling off the track.

At first, the 1500s can be run in sets of 3-4 with 60-75 secs recovery and five mins jog between sets.

The 600-800s should have equal time slow jog recovery. Run a max of 3-4k at this pace.

(Take 3k pace as 5k pace minus 15 secs mile, and 1500m pace as 5k pace minus 25 secs mile.)

Finally, protect that LT. Here you can either do a straight run of 4-5 miles at 5k pace + 25 secs. Or a 10 mile run at marathon pace (5k + 40 secs). Some runners like a progression run of 8 miles, like 4 miles at M-pace winding up to 4 miles of 5k+25 pace. This has not to be a race. This is not a session to be improved each week. But as the 5k and 10k race paces improve (and they will), you can slowly improve the LT pace.

All else easy running. If aiming for 5-10k, your longest run might be an easy 90 mins on Thurs. (With Tue, Fri and Sun as "work" days).

Notice that training this way you get fitter for distance first (ie: aerobically fit). You would do well in a 10 mile or half marathon race before you would do well in a 5k (as you found out).

I would suggest you move into phase 2 for 3-6 weeks. As always you should see a change in 3 weeks, and a definite improvement (and better racing) in 6 weeks.

Be careful/honest of the paces you choose. From now on always work off of race times (although a HRM is handy for easy running to make sure it is easy).. And if the paces become easier (in the short and long intervals), do not move up the speed, but shorten the recovery. Do not move up the training speeds until you race faster times. Things may come and things may go but race times never lie.

Hadd - If you check back with this thread, could you give me your thoughts on the following? (And thanks for being so willing ot share your expertise with anonymous posters.) I've been reading lately about this vVO2 pace, which seems to make a lot of sense, but one of the preferred workouts seems odd to me. It's essentially 30-second "on-offs" as we used to call them. Go 30 seconds at vVO2 pace, then 30 seconds at half that pace. I tried a session in fall and found the recommended 20 reps to be fairly easy. On the other hand I find more traditional VO2Max workouts like you describe above (1200 to mile repeats) to be rather more taxing, occasionally excruciating. I know the vVO2 pace is a little quicker, but there is only 10 minutes at pace in that first workout, and 15 to 20 minutes in the second. Is it just a case of my needing to do more than 20 'on-offs,' is it my old middle-distance experience making 30-second reps seem so easy (400s at mile pace seem easy, too), or is the workout just junk? Perhaps it's an indication that my aerobic system isn't fully developed that the longer bouts are so much tougher. Anyway, I'm back in a distance phase now, but was thinking the 30-30 workout could be a transition to the 1200s or miles once I get to that point. Any thoughts?

Hi MN Chris,

A number of ways we can look at your question concerning 30/30 at vVO2max versus the more traditional 800-1200 repeats at the same pace.

Purely logically, we can say that if you find the 30/30s to be a breeze, yet struggle on the 1200s, then the 30/30s cannot be doing their job, because both of these sessions are meant to be exercising/stressing the same thing. If they are both stressing the same system, then it should not matter (within a couple of percentage points) which exercise you do. Once you have got fit doing one, you should be able to do the other. I am confident that if you could do the 1200s, then the 30/30s would be cake... but not vice versa. Which makes you think, no?

Or we could look at the work Astrand and Rodahl did way back in 1970 and discussed in their magnum opus Textbook of Work Physiology. Since it is on the shelf behind me, let's look at it. They discuss (p398 of second edition) their study of a cyclist who was set a workload he could maintain for 9 mins all-out only. His VO2 at this effort was 4.6 L/min. They then had him try a number of intermittent sessions at this pace and measured his corresponding VO2.

Work time/rest time ? VO2 required L/min

30s/30s ? 2.9 L/min

60s/60s ? 2.93

2mins/2mins ? 4.40

3mins/3mins ? 4.6

So, for this cyclist to achieve the VO2 of a 9 min all-out effort, he had to exercise for something more than 2mins. (Traditionally, runners tend to take this as 800-1000's at 3-5km race pace)

One conclusion the authors made was "for the purposes of taxing the oxygen-transporting organs maximally, work periods of a few minutes' duration represent an effective type of work."

So, to refer to your question, this shows that 30/30 at a pace you can hold for 9 mins is not having the same effect as 3min/3min at the same pace.

However, they go on to discuss a study by Christensen, Hedman and Saltin (1960) of intermittent treadmill running using shorter work periods. In this, one subject was able to run at a very high VO2 of 5.6 L/min when he ran for 10s followed by a 5sec pause. He kept this up for 30 mins (on and off a treadmill ? 20 mins total running, 10 mins total rec) "without undue fatigue and with a low blood lactic acid concentration. At the end of the running period, the load on the oxygen-transporting system was maximal."

If the recovery was increased to 10secs, (10 on/10 off) the VO2 dropped. If the work/rest was increased to 15/15, the VO2 dropped, and as already shown 30/30 doesn't work either...

Note here that the athlete could only maintain this pace for 4 mins all-out (not 9 mins as above), so this is above vVO2max and more like best one mile pace (or faster; the athlete managed 1300m in 4.0 mins). They do make the case that the speed here is critical. For this runner, the pace at 22.75 km/hr enabled his VO2 to reach max at 10s/5s. But if the speed was reduced to 22 km/hr, then he only required 90% VO2max at 10s/5s, but he could go longer (60mins vs 25 mins).

So, "work from a few seconds to several minutes and up to hours of continuous running has been shown to put a major load on the oxygen-transport system, provided the work load is sufficiently high." (note the final caveat).

I tend to use 800s and 1200s as I've shown. We have tried the 30/30s, but everyone finds them too easy (can run all day and do not reach max). I have not ever tried the 10 on/5 off at best 4.00 min pace. And have never heard of good athletes who have done so (anyone used this?). It might be interesting...

One final point. Cardiac output and stroke volume attain their highest values at a load which produces VO2max. Training above this pace (ie: faster) the oxygen uptake, the cardiac output and the stroke volume may actually drop. To close with a quote from Astrand and Rodahl, "there is no evidence to support the assumption that it is important to engage the anaerobic process to any extreme degree in order to train the aerobic power." (p404).

Meaning there is no need to reach a state of "knee-grabbing" or reaching exhaustion, yet still be doing the optimal (aerobic power/aerobic capacity) training possible.

Final thought: in an earlier thread (to CBASS), I stated that if your aerobic ability is not good, you will not manage these 1200s. Above, you yourself are considering the same thing...

Sorry about the "Runforthe" with nothing else after. I hit enter instead of shift. Fat fingers I guess.

Thanks HADD for the input. It's nice to know that there is improvement on the horizon and that I've just been doing phase 1 (ie base training) with the 10 milers and the 2K/1mile 10K intervals.

Your input and adivce is always appreciated. Thanks again, and I'll let you know how things go after theMar 22nd Azalea Trail 10K and then a 5K a couple of weeks after that.