99% of sub elite runners who aspire to be pro should just give up. You are sub elite because of genetics. Once you realize that you can focus of better things and not waste your time with a goal you almost certainly will never achieve.
Having good top end speed is one of the most valuable traits any runner can have. "Good" is obviously very context dependent based upon your age, gender, target distance, and target times.
People suck at developing speed and have zero idea how to. There's certainly a genetic component to being fast, but you're leaving speed on the table if you don't even try.
Do 3–5 short (20–50m) sprints 1–3 times/week with a few minutes of recovery at max effort or near max effort. That's enough for most.
When people recognize this they'll stop being flabbergasted when they get dusted by the "low mileage guy" in a longer race. He's way further from his redline than you because you're slow.
I have a lot of bait. But I'll just leave this here:
There is zero reason American marathoners can't run 2:04-2:05 with our track times and supershoes. It's our marathon coaches that can't get the job done. Ed Eyestone thus far included.
Agreed that Americans should be capable of those times, but I think it has less to do with coaching, and more that our best talent spends their prime years on the track. Grant Fisher could run at least 2:04, but he won't try until after LA at the earliest. If Rupp moved up earlier and had supershoes, similar story. Our coaches are doing the best they can with the second-tier talent they have to work with. I do think Mantz has a chance to run 2:05 in the near future.
Is the problem not being fast enough for the distance?
OR
Not having the endurance needed to be able to maximize your speed for the distance?
Most "serious" club runner types I meet have more endurance than they need and not enough speed.
If you wanna try to grind out 6:05 miles for a full marathon with a lifetime mile best of 5:00, be my guest. But the guy who's got 4:20 speed will generally need a lot less mileage to get to that same level of marathon performance.
Is the problem not being fast enough for the distance?
OR
Not having the endurance needed to be able to maximize your speed for the distance?
Most "serious" club runner types I meet have more endurance than they need and not enough speed.
If you wanna try to grind out 6:05 miles for a full marathon with a lifetime mile best of 5:00, be my guest. But the guy who's got 4:20 speed will generally need a lot less mileage to get to that same level of marathon performance.
Elementary and middle school coaches - go out on the training runs with the kids. Teach them to change paces with you. Otherwise it is boring for them and they have no discipline, choosing to sprint out too fast at the start and try to run a VO2 max workout each time.
This gets tougher as the kids get faster, but it's important to have some control of the pace.
My other hot take is that "downhill running destroying your quads," like you hear in Boston, is only a thing for newer and physically weaker runners. If you regularly do some form of hills as well as speed work and a touch of strength, this is not an issue. Bonus points if you actually practice running downhill on tired legs.
All of you are doing way too many hard workouts every week, far more mileage than you need, and your easy workouts should be closer to Z1. None of you listened to Hadd in all the years he gave advice here before he passed.
The first time an elite coach finally bites the bullet and has their runners train more easily and cuts their mileage down to 60-80 mpw, and wins doing that, it's going to break most of you because (as they all do) you attach your egos to how fast you run, how many mpw you do, and sticking to outdated research and traditions.
Please elaborate.
Who is Hadd? What was the advice that he gave? Where can I find more info about his coaching?
All of you are doing way too many hard workouts every week, far more mileage than you need, and your easy workouts should be closer to Z1. None of you listened to Hadd in all the years he gave advice here before he passed.
The first time an elite coach finally bites the bullet and has their runners train more easily and cuts their mileage down to 60-80 mpw, and wins doing that, it's going to break most of you because (as they all do) you attach your egos to how fast you run, how many mpw you do, and sticking to outdated research and traditions.
Please elaborate.
Who is Hadd? What was the advice that he gave? Where can I find more info about his coaching?
I'll preface this with: I barely know what I'm talking about.
Hadd was some low heart rate training guy. Wanted you to do LOTS of jogging at a super low heart rate for a very long period of time.
The only people I see that have success with it are older and slower people.
I may be completely wrong, but I don't think I am.
Is the problem not being fast enough for the distance?
OR
Not having the endurance needed to be able to maximize your speed for the distance?
Most "serious" club runner types I meet have more endurance than they need and not enough speed.
If you wanna try to grind out 6:05 miles for a full marathon with a lifetime mile best of 5:00, be my guest. But the guy who's got 4:20 speed will generally need a lot less mileage to get to that same level of marathon performance.
And guy with 4:20 speed that runs a marathon at 6:05 pace is either horribly undertrained or literally hobby jogging the race. Either way there's not a single thing anyone can learn from them. The 5 minute miler that can run 2:40? He probably actually went through some serious sh/t to get there. I'd be interested to know how he did it.
Here's a hill that I'll die on related to that. There's a lot of discussion around overtraining recently on the boards as it relates to relatively newer runners training for a marathon. Well, just 10 years ago when it came to expectations around success at that distance with your first race, or even first few races, is that it simply took time to get it right. We didn't say "you did too much, dial it back."
So the hill I'll die on is that you're not overtrained, the marathon just sucks for most people until you've been doing them for several years.
And guy with 4:20 speed that runs a marathon at 6:05 pace is either horribly undertrained or literally hobby jogging the race. Either way there's not a single thing anyone can learn from them. The 5 minute miler that can run 2:40? He probably actually went through some serious sh/t to get there. I'd be interested to know how he did it.
Slowpoke spotted!
In this hypothetical both have a goal of 2:40. You can critique his goal of 2:40 as being soft or say he hobby jogged it, but that's entirely irrelevant to the conversation.
My point is the 4:20 guy has an easier time of achieving his goal due to his speed. He gets better results off of less work. That's the dream, the holy grail of training for any sport: maximizing returns and minimizing stress.
Who is Hadd? What was the advice that he gave? Where can I find more info about his coaching?
Hadd used to post here in LR's early days. The link is a PDF of text from one of his most famous threads, and spot-on sums up his approach to base training, which most people of all levels don't do enough of.
Sometimes I wonder if the brojos nuked the old Hadd threads to subversively scrub his message from existence. Some of the other sites that hosted the below PDF of his famous old thread have also mysteriously gone away.
P.S. While I'm not sure if this thread was started as a troll, "you're slow because you choose to be" is a definite 0/10.