Easy pace for 19:40 5k runner

Peter Snell told me the way to tell if you were running too fast is if you keep needing days off or consistently have to do very short and/or slow runs. If you're able to do the run you wanted today you didn't run too fast yesterday and if you're able to do the run you want tomorrow you didn't run too fast today. That's all going to be based on feeling. That said, Lydiard would also tell you that "you cannot run too slowly, but you can run too fast."

It's all super individual but I'm about a minute faster on your 5k and I do my easy mileage/warmup/cooldowns at 10-1030 miles. Granted I do the Norweigan Singles training, so this is all sub 70% max hr and sandwiched between 3 sub t sessions, but yeah its SLOW lol

I may get downvoted to oblivion for saying this but I don't think anybody should be running slower than 8:00/mile.

If you're a decent runner and 8:00/mile is easy for you then great.

If 8:00/mile isn't easy for you then tough luck, keep running at 8:00/mile or faster until you improve and it becomes easy for you.

Joe Hendersons' LSD book came out shortly after I started running. It was quite controversial at the time. He profiled six runners who trained slowly by standards of the time all going between 7:00 and 8:00 pace. Some people responded to the book by saying you were not even running if you were going slower than 7:00 pace. Joe told me that when he began training that way, 7:00 to 8:00 pace, he had trouble finding training partners because everyone complained that he ran too slowly. Then after the idea of slow training had really caught on, maybe a couple decades or so later, he had trouble finding training partners because everyone complained that he trained too fast. "But I wasn't doing anything differently then than I was twenty years earlier," he said.
When I decided to slow down in training and up my volume I did everything around 7:30 to 8:00 pace. My first marathon took 4:34 so I was training well under my marathon pace. But my second one seven months later was just under 3:30. As the years went on most of my runs were at my marathon pace, around 6:00 pace at my best. But another way to say that was that I just ran marathons at my normal training pace.

I always find this to be such silly logic, and yet it gets repeated so often on this site.

If someone is at 100% of their training load, it doesn't matter if they're running 100mpw or 45mpw, it's 100% of the load they can handle.

If you go faster on your easy runs, you will increase that training load, and you'll do it in a way that's neither sustainable nor worth the additional stress (in terms of cost-benefit).

That's not how physiology works.

I notice I breathe through my nose mostly on a truly easy run.

Easy pace is self-explanatory.

I think if you run between 18-21minutes for a 5k then it’s completely fine to be running your easy runs at between 6 & 6:30/km pace (so I guess around 10min milling). I think much slower than that is unnecessarily slow though.

The people who run their 5ks at that pace and then do their ‘easy’ runs at sub 5min/km are probably doing their easy runs too fast

Yes it does. Take a couch potato who starts training. He does some 3 mile runs at 10 minute pace and races a 5k at 28 minutes. A year later, he is doing 40 MPW at 8 minute pace and racing 5k at 21 minutes.

Good take. The one thing that most commenters are leaving out of this equation is the fact that perceived exertion at a given heart rate varies according to where you are in the run. Assuming a normative temp (i.e., non-summer) of 60 degrees, so that dehydration and heat aren't an issue, a 75% HR will feel noticeably harder half a mile in than it will feel at two or three miles in. The same is more true for an 80% HR, which would seem hard-ish half a mile in but, after two or three miles, still qualifies as a fairly easy aerobic pace.

The thing is a lot of people running 21 min 5ks don’t need easy runs. They are running <35 mpw and at that low volume you can go out and do steady runs every day and recover. And on a per min basis you get better results by running up around the aerobic threshold than much slower. See a school like American Fork who basically does this as there afternoon run every day. Or read what Bakken recommends for people doing minimal training.

People like to pretend that everyone is out trying to max their 5k time and come up with plans where people should spent 12+hours/week running. In the real world most people want to maximize the 5 hours they spend running and not have it be there life. There aren’t close to maxing out their recovery.

And yes it is funny how easy pace has gone from 6:30 to people now wondering is 8 mins is too fast in 20 years. And people focusing on Kipchoges first couple KM of the run that is 6min/km and ignore the last 10 that are sub 4…. Or nick willis saying kids ran to fast cause he wanted to run at 6:40 pace and they were doing 6:15. And some how that justifies them wanting to run 10 min miles….

i

run more get faster.

any fit adult male should be able to run 5/6 times per week and be able to run under 17mins with 6 months of consistent training (if starting from ground zero), 3 months if a regular runner

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

9:30 minutes per mile. Not even joking. Maybe even 10:00-10:30 on hills or trail.

I'm hovering around 20 min 5K and I run around 9-9:30 depending on heat and leg health. Maybe an occasional 8:45 mile if I feel really fresh.

If I just hammered a workout the day before, my recovery pace might dip into the 9:30-10 range if I feel really cooked.

I don't really know what my current fitness is but I'd estimate around 17:30-18:00 (I have a much faster PR but that was a long time ago and I have gained 30lbs). And I'm running easy days over 10:00 pace right now on a track. It's hot and humid which completely changes the ballgame. But still. My first mile was 10:34 yesterday afternoon. I was already creeping out of Z1.

It's incredibly difficult, often impossible, to keep my HR under 70% for even a 40-minute run. So it's pretty crazy and laughable to me that 20:00 guys are training at under 5:00/km pace. That's above my Z2, at least in heat, right now. Doing an aggressive sub-T every day is incredibly foolish. And people wonder they don't improve?

1). Plenty of people running 21min 5ks do more than 35 mpw.

2). "On a per min basis you get better results by running up around the aerobic than much slower". Wrong. It might "work" on a very short-term basis for fit 17-year-olds with talent, but then again, most training approaches make fit 17-year-olds with talent faster. For anybody else, this is a moronic way to train.

3). In the real world, people should train at least 10 hours per week. Not for race performance, but for health and longevity. If they can't find time for that, they better figure out how to restructure their life. It's literally killing our population via cancer, heart disease, etc., but you already knew that.

4). No one here says Kipchoge or Willis should run 6:00/km. That's talking about Olympic Champions (Willis is the rightful winner due to Kiprop being a doper) who can run 4:25-4:35/mile pace at under 4mmol lactate. They are probably comfortably in Z1 at 6:30/mile though it could be noted that even Willis argues against 6:15/mile especially for runners slower than him. We are discussing 20:00 5k runners whose 4mmol pace is likely not too far under 7:30/mile. Should they run 6:40 pace with Willis and Kipchoge? That's a race for them.

1) yep. But plenty also run 25 miles week

2) feel free to show the person running 30mpw at 10mins/mile running faster 5ks than the one doing those runs at 6 min oace

3) 10 hours week is worse for your health than running 5. If you want to give health for a marginally faster 5k go for it

4) then why does everyone post about them running super slow? Why not just accept they do the easy 2-3 mins off 5k pace and not some super sluggish paces? And not how you have moved from our 20min 5k guy from running easy to making them run hard? what does hard have to do with the arguement between easy and super easy.