Stuck on 37 minute 10K

The half should have been 1:21. It was on a course where the last 5 miles were climbing and I lost pace, but 6:15 felt good for a long way.

You should really invest in a decent watch paired with a chest strap HR monitor.

Without a HR monitor you have no idea what effort you're putting in.

If your workouts aren't in the HR ranges you're just spinning your wheels.

The plan(s) I’m about to provide you each use the same methodology, which is genius, and brilliant in its simplicity. A 36min runner should be able to execute it (I.e., it should work, if followed. Again, if you are unable to follow it, then you are not adapting fast enough, and you will need to dial back expectations, and paces, and it will thus, take longer than eight weeks.)

This plan is backed up with years of scientific research that culminated into the following two key online calculators, combined, upon which this plan is based:
1. Jack Daniels Calculator;
2. Tanda Calculator.

With their clear understanding, these calculators provide the requisite volume and pace for practically any level of runner.

Three different mileage plans are provided below, as examples. They are to be followed for at least eight weeks. Each gets one to 36min capability.

45 mile week plan to 36min capability:
Every day, run 3x2mile reps, at 6:02/mile average. On one or two days of the week, add in an additional 2mile rep to get to 45miles/week.

50 mile week plan to 36min capability:
Every day, run 3x2.25mile reps, at 6:13/mile average. On one or two days of the week, add in an additional 2mile rep, as necessary, to get to 50miles/week.

40 mile week plan to 36min capability:
Every day, run 3x2mile reps, at 5:50/mile average. On one day of the week, drop one of the reps to total 40miles/week.
Alternatively, run only 6/days week but add an additional 3x2mile rep on a couple of the other running days in the week.

Take sufficient recovery between reps (e.g., walk 400m.)

To make this plan easier starting out, you can run 6 one-mile reps instead of 3 two-mile reps per day.

There is no way you’re being serious.

I'm a big fan of CV pace for the range of 3k-15k. It's close enough to 5k pace that you can elicit VO2 max adaptations (slightly more important for 5k, but still important for 10k) but also close enough to 1 hour pace that you can improve your LT. It's also not super hard on your body, so you're able to do 2 workouts instead of only one. According to TinMan's calculator, your CV pace would be approximately 5:55-6:00 pace per mile.

I like (building up to it of course) either 7x800 or 5-6x1000 at CV pace, 1:30-ish jog rest in between eventually progressing down to 60 sec jog rest.

Other things to do:

1. Long-ish moderate runs at 85% of 5k pace. I'll assume your 5k is around 17:45 (5:43 pace per mile) -- build up to about an hour at 6:30-6:35 pace per mile. So basically you're doing Tuesday but extended.

2. Strides - do it on Monday and Friday. Being able to run faster will make running slower easier.

3. Doubles. If you have time do more doubles, they boost fitness really well

What is wrong with you? Are you another cowardly online critique of that which they know not of.

Bottomline, unless you try it, your critiques are ill-informed from a point of ignorance.

Tell me now, do you try to sell coaching services? Making running some mysterious art?

No, I don’t need to try it to know it’s farse. Have you ever even done the slightest bit of research into training/sports physiology?

Your program does not allow for recovery, it does not allow for supercompensation, it does not allow for progressive overload, and it will burn out or injure the athlete within 2 weeks.

That’s like saying “you don’t even have to run to get good at running, just do sets of 100 every day for everything in the weight room and your endurance will be phenomenal, this program works, you can’t dog on it until you try it”

You are an idiot because you try the claim all the things this plan doesn’t do, when in reality, it does all that it is supposed to do. The research has been done by Daniels and Tanda. Follow-on imposters are not necessary.

No recovery?!? What do you think is happening when you are not running?!?

The amount of load is precisely prescribed, and the runner gets daily/weekly feedback from himself on where he is at with regard to adapting, or not.

Oh dear, oh dear, six miles everyday of repetitions performed at ~half-marathon pace is going to break me?!? (even though I get to walk to full recovery between them?)

oh well, guess you’re not ready to physically adapt.

What an ego you have!

Recovery to super-compensation takes 48-72 hours. Super-compensation is how you improve, and allows you to be stronger for the next workout. If you have a heavy training stimulus every day, supercompensation doesn’t happen and you end up losing fitness until injured. It’s not an arguing point it’s literally physiology.

Even aside from that, there are significantly better, more efficient ways to improve Vo2Max, Lactate threshold, Capillary density, Economy, and speed than just running race pace every day.

I want you to name, with evidence one athlete who has found any long term success with your prescribed training method.

The fact that this training is so abysmal that I thought you were trolling should be enough to sum it up.

BTW, I’m currently working with an older runner, that has been running for a couple of years now, with a long history of running injuries. He wants to go National Class in the Half Marathon, though he’s currently about six minutes short.

He is on a plan with a similarly prescribed training method, and I figure a reasonable expectation is that he will need at least 24 weeks of adaptation in order to drop those six minutes; in essence three 8-week training blocks in succession.

He goes to the track daily to get in his reps, and I actually need to reel him in to dial back the pace; patience on the part of the runner (along with some mental fortitude) is required.

Hah, my older runner is holding up so far. If I’m still around, I’ll let you know if/when he goes National Class

If the athlete is not feeling it that day, not recovered, etc., then he/she is free to take as many days off as they want. It just means the adaptations are going to take longer.

no offense, but this seems like an idiotic version of Klaas Lok intervals. His are much more relaxed and serve a true purpose (getting more quality when keeping the run relatively easy - e.g. running 16 laps of 35/55 lets you get 2 miles of running in at 4:40 pace while not being so tiring) while also having a couple easier (10x400 at 5k) and more endurance (6x1k at marathon) days. I've never ran the EIM, but I know a couple of people for whom it's worked really well.

On the other hand, yours is doing the same thing every day. There's no recovery so the body can't adapt.

I’m not familiar with all the in’s and out’s of the Klass method you speak of, but I’m not surprised I’m the only guy that’s come up with this.

I mean, c’mon, somebody should have informed Nurmi, Zatopek, Pirie and Ryun that doing reps everyday (regardless of pace and interval) broke them???

That 2-3x3200m workout is a peaking workout. That might get him from 37:00 to 36:45, which I am sure the OP would be thrilled with, but it doesn’t leave much room for getting faster. Is he just supposed to run the workout faster the next time? What other workouts is he doing during the week to make that possible?

He’d be better off doing less race specific stuff and more general fartlek / hills / fast finish runs.

He includes a variety of paces to stimulate different systems. This is a good peaking workout, but if you do it too much (and every day is too much) you'll burn out because you're burning mitochondria