Many (maybe most) slow hobby joggers don't do workouts/hard days at all. They just go for a run several days a week at whatever pace feels comfortable.
And that's okay. This entire thread assumes a goal for hobby joggers (getting faster) that many of them don't have. For many, it's not about trying to place 200th instead of 250th at the turkey trot. It's about exercise, well being, and being a part of an event.
Are you thick headed?
Obviously if someone is just fine going out and running and enjoying the outdoors and unconcerned about performance, then they don't need to do any of the other stuff. This thread is not about them. Nobody here thinks they need to do anything other than what they are doing.
In fisky's initial post he clearly stated these people run and are frustrated about the fact that they are not improving. We are suggesting a way for them to improve.
Got it??
dang man. wise up.
We are talking past each other. Here's what I'm getting at:
Just last Wednesday, I went for a nice morning run in my favorite blue shorts. Now, the day before, I made a bad choice by visiting Taco Bell and really going to town. I thought I'd be fine on my run the next day, but I was wrong. During the third mile, I began to experience digestive distress, and by mile 5, I had soiled my blue shorts so badly that I had no choice but to throw them away. The clean up process almost required a hazmat crew. What a mess.
BACKGROUND: Multiple injuries and two surgeries kept me out of running for nearly an entire year. When I attempted to return to running, I expected to be slow and lack endurance, but I was shocked to discover that I couldn't "run" at all. All I could do was what I call the marathon shuffle... that 12-14min/mile pace that you see most people doing from mid-pack to the back of marathons. When I tried to pick up the pace, I physically couldn't do it. My legs just refused to move in that range of motion.
So I followed the standard training approach, staying slow and adding distance, for a month, but my ability to actually "run" didn't improve.
Frustrated, I tried a different approach. I warmed up with drills and my glacial 14min/mile pace, then I did progressive 30m repeats... maybe 4. It felt really hard, but I did it every day. After a couple of weeks, I could "run" 50 meters. In two more weeks, I could "run" 100m. Fast forward three months, I'm running 200m in 32 seconds and mile repeats under 9 minutes.
On all my Facebook running groups, there are runners bemoaning (or bragging) about their 3 hour half marathons. Why aren't they getting faster? Sure, talent and dedication to training is the major factor, but I think I've found a missing link that could help a LOT of recreational runners.
They simply lack the range of motion to run faster. There is a HUGE difference in the range of motion, knee lift, etc in a 8 minute pace verus a 14 minute pace.
I know it sounds counter intuitive, but I think a lot of recreational runners who have plateaued at 12min/mile could improve just by adding some Flying 30 meters to their warm up routine or at some point in their run. You can't run fast if your legs won't move through that range of motion. Adding intervals to run 400m in a 10 minute pace isn't going to elicit that same range of motion improvement as these very short runs.
Has anyone tried this? Is anyone training recreational runners with this approach?
I think you're in the weeds broheim. Most recreational runners don't get better for these reasons.
1. like someone said on here, they never push to the point of discomfort in training. No pain no gain.
2. Some that are willing to push into the pain will do too much too soon and get injured
3. Some that are willing to push into the pain will excess weight and will end up injured
4. Some that are willing to push into the pain have bio-mechanical problems(poor posture, low cadence, other) that they don't realize/address and will end up injured
I believe if any runner can stay healthy and push themselves a few times a week to point of pain/discomfort they will see improvements. I don't think the type of hard workout matters just as long as its hard. If something is hard you are outside of your comfort zone and should recover to be better from it. I think runners get too hung up on the exact types of workouts, over analyze training programs, and blame poor races on their training plan.
Your post is really fascinating because I have the same issue. I used to be a pretty decent marathoner, but in the past year or so, I couldn't seem to improve my pacing beyond anything that would be described as a "shuffle." I trained more, tried to push harder, and simply couldn't do it. I'll give your approach a try. Never thought it might be a mechanical issue.
Masters athletes are far better served by focusing on range of motion, turnover, hip mobility, and strength. You can improve your aerobic abilities via cross training and your overall joint/tendon strength with walking and hiking. Spending 3-4 days doing a combination of fartlek, hill reps, track work, and tempo will keep you moving much faster than a shuffle. Unless you are running half marathon and up, you really don't need weekly long runs.
They just dont run enough or hard enough. We can make up all scary sounding words but we all know the answer.
I know from experience that when i go all out and i mean all out, completely wet from head to toe, heart pounding hard, fighting for air that there will be progress, always happened, always will happen.
I also know from experience that when i went easier but "better planned", that progress will be minimal if any. If i go "by feel" there will be zero progress as you will never feel like going all out.
Running is animalistic, the less you think and the more you do, the better you will be.
Recreational runners don't improve for all sorts of reasons.
1. only easy running
2. lots of days off. They may only start training 3 months before a big race with no running for 3 to 6 months beforehand.
3. no idea of periodization - never even heard of the concept
4. don't like to hurt in training
5. go to hard too often - no sense of easy/recovery pace
6. do training activities that are harmful to running - anything from too much strength training to too much yoga
If someone wants to improve, they will.
I train until i get runners high, after that its not even training, it gets super easy, and im pounding laps like piece of cake.
The tough part is getting to the runners high. It gets created by bodies own opiate substances, which get produced once certain pain has been experienced, certain amount of liver glucose has been dumped and there was a third variable.
Its literally mathematically calculable.
I reach runners high almost every workout, which is why my first half of the workout is excruitangly painful but the second part is "How, how man ???" team mates ask as i rep out lap after lap. The answer how is cause its easy, it feels easy, my body flies, i actually have to cut my workout willingly because it gets to point where i can just workout so much that it looks weird to people, and also feels shameful to run 35 laps when all your team mates run 15-20.
It sounds like you are saying that shorter 8’ pace intervals are better than longer 10’ intervals. One trains raw speed, the other speed endurance, so most runners need both.
No, it's not that. What I'm thinking is that one of the limitations of, let's call them hobbyjoggers, is the inability to move their legs in a wider range of motion because they have NEVER done it. Not only that, but their muscles lack strength in that range of motion. So even if they attempt intervals, they just wind up shuffling, but at a faster pace. They barely lift their feet off the ground.
I found that forcing myself to run for a very short distance nearly as fast as I could go for 5 seconds or so paid tremendous dividends in less than a month. Once I could hit my goal pace for around 30m, I gradually increased the distance to 100m. One surprising benefit is that my long intervals improved dramatically as I did these speed/form/range of motion short running efforts.
Using this approach, a recreational runner would run flying 30 meter repeats until they could do several in 8 seconds... a 7min/mile pace. Once they could do that, they would increase the distance to 50m and then to 100m. My unproven premise is that many slow runners would benefit from this approach.
It would be interesting to take some runners who are stuck at a 35 minute 5k and see how much they could improve in 3-4 months using this approach.
Good observation. I went to a soccer field earlier in the week and did twelve 25 yard all out sprints on grass. My legs were as sore as they've ever been for the next two days. It was like I used leg muscles I've never used before. I do speed work in the 7 minute mile range, but this sprinting was at a level of speed I never attempt. I think I need to do this more often.
Unpopular opinion, but I think a lot of people just don't push themselves hard enough. You hear all the talk about making sure you do your easy days easy, but I think that's only necessary when you actually start being capable of running 'fast' paces. If it's hard for you to run 9:00 per mile pace, then you just need to keep running a bunch of 9:00 miles and eventually it isn't hard. Going 12:00 mile pace on your 'easy' day isn't really doing much for you. It's barely more than going for a walk.
Another thing is volume, most people just don't run enough. If you only run about 15-20 miles per week, then a 3 mile run is not a short run. How are you going to push yourself hard for 3 miles when you typically only run that far on an easy run. That's where you get the over-distance training to come in, do over-distance tempos so that you can run faster for a shorter distance, and that shorter distance eventually is kind of long.
Only if you're running a ton of mileage is going super slow on easy runs good, and only if you're doing really hard workouts can you get away with low mileage.
I agree with you for the most part. I've seen threads here from people, young ones, twenty or so years old, talking about running 11:00 miles as their training pace. I'm as big a believer as there can be in doing lots of comfortable miles but when I was in grade school, which was exactly a mile from the back door to my school, I'd usually walk home in eleven minutes and change. I cannot understand how someone can run at a pace a chubby eleven year old could walk at and expect to get much faster.
Joe Henderson probably did more to promote the idea of the value of easy paced distance runs than any three people combined with his "LSD' book. He profiled six guys, himself being one, running anywhere from fast times to respectable ones using easy running. But none of them ran slower than eight minute pace or less than fifty miles a week. Over time more people used this approach but began running much, much, slower than eight minute pace. Joe wrote that early in his "LSD" years many people didn't want to run with him because he ran too slowly but in later years many didn't want to run with him because he ran too fast. His pace hadn't changed, others perception of it had.
Joe often referenced Ernst van Aaken as a coach who successfully had his athletes use slow training, some whose overall times for runs worked out to even a bit slower than eight minute pace. van Aaken himself ran ten kilometres after work each night in an hour, much slower than eight minute miling. He ran with his son who told me that they did not run at a steady six minute per kilometre pace for the hour. It was an interval session, not a hard one, and the running was at a faster pace (don't know what it was) with some walking included which slowed the overall time.
Of course, range of motion does come into play here, you're using more of it at 7:00-8:00 per mile than at 12:00-15:00 and if I was coaching people running the latter paces and not improving I would have them mixing running at the former paces with walking. And I expect I'd get resistance from some who have seen some formula about making their easy days easy defined as x minutes slower than their 5 km pace and articles that tell them to "run faster by running slower." But I'm with you in thinking that people racing those sorts of paces need to run much faster in training.
Great discussion. I'm one of the mid 40's guys coming into running after close to 10 years as a practical couch potato.
What you are faced with when it cones to advice on the net in your typical beginner forum or couch to 5k program is that "There is no such thing as TOO SLOW".
God forbid someone chimes in that maybe 14 minute miles will never prepare you to do some actual running anytime soon.
Then You have the Maffetone cult that caters to couch potatoes desire to avoid discomfort. I wasted 18 months shuffling at 12-13 minute miles running every day 4-6 hours a week.
I blame myself, but Frisky is on to something. If a beginner has visions of one day easy running at say 8- 9 minute miles, even 10 then the Maffetone style shuffle irrespective of volume isn't going to get you there.
I do believe mileage matters, but mileage at something that resembles close enough to the running motion.
Your post is really fascinating because I have the same issue. I used to be a pretty decent marathoner, but in the past year or so, I couldn't seem to improve my pacing beyond anything that would be described as a "shuffle." I trained more, tried to push harder, and simply couldn't do it. I'll give your approach a try. Never thought it might be a mechanical issue.
Let us know how it goes!
I'd suggest you do 4-6 reps of 20m with a rolling start at first. You'll be sore the next day, but you can do it every other day. I'd suggest a pace that feels like a controlled sprint, starting easy on the first rep and building to the last rep. Grass or a track is better than pavement.
The one downside is that you're at risk for hamstring and glute strains. Make sure you do some dynamic stretches first. I did, but in spite of being careful, I dinged my hamstring a little and had to back off the pace for a couple of weeks. I do 20-30 minutes of warm up drills before I do a track workout.
I'm a recreational runner and I will say I've been taken aback when pros casually throw out things like "yeah, on those laps I tasted blood" or "my vision was going in and out but I felt like I could stay strong."
I mean, I would stop immediately if any of this was happening.
Wrong. Tasting blood is normal when doing hard repeats in the spring, especially when it hot.
I'm a recreational runner and I will say I've been taken aback when pros casually throw out things like "yeah, on those laps I tasted blood" or "my vision was going in and out but I felt like I could stay strong."
I mean, I would stop immediately if any of this was happening.
Me too, and I was "fast" enough to run an OTQ in the marathon. I could go for a very long time at a moderately hard pace, but could never push myself to the point of passing out or anything close. Perhaps that's why I was never any good at shorter distances.
4. Look to do too much stuff other than running. You aren't going to squat, lunge, or jump rope or jazzercise yourself to a PR, that stuff is just the sprinkles on top of the cake. You need to run- A LOT if your goal is to be a better runner.
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