Mistake #1: Running Too Fast On Easy Days

No, it's 8:24/mile.

In the article, I give a formula for determining percentages of paces.

You can convert paces into mph by doing the following:

3600 divided by 353 seconds (or 5:53/mile).

This equals 10.2mph.

To get our 70% figure, we then do the following:

10.2 x 0.7 = 7.14mph

Then to convert this back to pace, you do the following:

3600 divided by 7.14

This equals 504.3 seconds (or 8:24.3/mile)

What's easy pace for a 36:30 10k?

Oh. I've been running the correct pace all along then. Never faster than 8:00!

For 36:00, it's 5:08 – 5:42/km (8:16 – 9:10/mile)

For 37:00, it's 5:17 - 5:52/km (8:30 – 9:26/mile)

So maybe halfway between those e.g. 8:23 - 9:18/mile

This is what sets the success of the sirpoc method that's exploded from the Norwegian lower mileage thread. He is controlling the intensity of ALL running. Easy or workout. Very controlled, measured and purposeful. The easy running paces are probably on the lower maybe even the lowest side of anything I have seen anyone else subscribe. Can mean walking up hills at time, even for relatively fit runners.

Yeah sirpoc says below 70% of max HR, which is slow as pond water for me

Yeah I agree with this. I have spent way more time than is healthy pouring over sirpoc's Strava . A comment struck me and you can sometimes see on his runs, how we really slows down for hills. I think he said there's no reason really to over a few strides, but it helps build discipline and control to stick to intensity control in the bigger picture. That struck with me and a lecture I saw by Seiler and how XC olympic skiers often did the same.

The guy is in his 40s so control is even more important I think for masters, the guy has just run a 1:08 hilly half and a 30 10k and the majority of mileage is still around 7 min miles at the absolute fastest for daily mileage. So I'm all for intensity control down to the finest level and I actually do think this is where hobby joggers are often messing up.

I'm to old and beat up to even try to run fast on my easy days. 😂

You must be new here.

I don't think I disagree with the premise here but not sure about the recommended paces.

For example my 10k pace is 4:10/km. This gives me a time of 41:40.

In your recommendations, you say that most easy running by pros is about 59 to 72 % of their 10k pace. Applying this to my slow 10k pace, I get a power bound of 5:53/km and an upper bound of 5:20/km.

But if I check your pace recommendations in the table, it says between 5:51/km and 6:40/km for 41 and 42 mins 10k time.

Have I done something wrong here? I don't get why they don't line up.

He said 63-70%, not 59-72%.

The overall spread of easy paces (across all 24 runners) was 59 - 76% of their 10k pace. That is, one runner did an easy run that was 59% of his/her 10k pace, and another did a run that was 76% of his/her easy pace. These were the extremities.

However, the average range was between 63-70%. I thought this would give a better prescription, as it narrows the range, and removes the outliers.

If you take the 63-70% figures, your easy pace range would be around 5:55 - 6:35/km.

He gave 59 to 72 % as a kind of upper and lower bound, with 63 to 70 % average.

But even if you apply 63 to 70 % average to my 10k time, that means 5:43/km to 5:25/km which is still well out from what the pace chart recommends.

Can I just not do maths? I thought 63 to 70 % of 4:10/km is 5:43/km to 5:25/km?

I get what you're saying, Paul, but don't you think it makes more sense for the percent difference between race pace and easy pace to be a variable, not a constant? If you think about it, it makes more sense that the slower the race PR, higher the percent difference between the PR and ceiling of E pace should be.

I'm 59 years-old and I've been going through the painstaking task of coming back, after a long series of physical setbacks that kept me from running with any consistency for the good part of a year. Once getting into strong enough physical health, I've gone from 10K race pace being about 10 min/mile, to now it being about 7:30/mi, and still improving.

At the beginning, my running mechanics sucked, and I really had only one gear that felt like running: 10:00 to 10:30 min/mile, depending on how good I felt that day. The problem was that my mechanics got worse the slower the pace, as I'd then be doing this in-between awkward jog/walk paced thing. Instead of walking (too easy) or running my only running pace every day (too taxing), I used zone 2 cross-training on the Stairmaster every other day, in between my running days.

Now that I'm at about 7:30/mi 10K race pace and my mechanics are getting much better, I've gradually backed off on the zone 2 stairs to once every 4 days, but it is still nearly impossible for me to "run" at very slow paces, such as the ~11:30/mile it would take to be in that ~66% of PR zone, without it feeling very awkward and painfully slow. It's still this in-between awkward walk-run thing. Holding it back to about 10:00-10:30/mile, on the other hand, now feels like a really slow but comfortable conversational jog pace that I could maintain indefinitely, rather than a slogging jog/walk.

I don't know if I speak for others running at my level. Perhaps everyone is an experiment of 1 in this respect.

Poring over

Nice. Wil you be writing more articles about your training?

You must be new on Letsrun.

This is an incredible article. Please keep sharing your work!