Sub-4 guy running 9-minute pace--what's it like?

I've run 4:39 (which is a crap time for me imo) but anything slower than 7:45 hurts my knees. (assuming fair conditions)

just try running 5 minutes slower for mile then your best mile time

I volunteered to lead the 2:20 pace group for a local half marathon next month. This is 10:40 pace, which is very slow for me. I hope it doesn't cause problems.

Remember the Hadd thread? He said that the better shape you are in, the more comfortable you are at ALL paces.

The guys enjoyed your company. Running isn't always about "training." Sometimes just being outside, enjoying the weather with a friend makes it as enjoyable as any other run.

That said, my personal opinion is that the wider the range of your paces, the better. Not sure how close I run to 5 minutes/mile these days, but I'm okay with doing easy runs as slow as 3 minutes/mile slower than my marathon pace. That feels slow but I'd do it with company. If I am tired, I'll even go 2 minutes/mile slower than marathon pace. That's about 4 minutes/mile slower than my mile pace.

When I was peaking for my 5k pr (16:47), I'd done 10 mile long runs at 6:30 pace, could run 60flat at the end of a hard interval workout and felt comfortable doing around 11:00 minute mile pace.

I went to Kenya three years ago for a 3 month training session, and while most of the runs in the morning were anywhere from 4:30-5:45 pace, the evening runs we're literally a crawl. If I had started walking I would have dropped them. If I had to guess, we were doing about 15 minute miles. And these were sub 60 half marathoners. They made these crawls look much more comfortable than me and I had trouble going that slow.

I ran 4 minutes. Every once in a while I would do a really slow run with a girl I liked. How did it feel? The most honest answer is, it depended on how much I liked her. I always thought of it as more of a "hike" than "run". Of course there is some benefit to running 9 minute pace. Ask Wejo, he did it all the time.

smd wrote:

In Kenya I joined Issac Songok and Augustine Choge on some of their recovery runs. We would do short (4 miles?) loops slower than I ran the loops with my wife, who was barely running at the time and unused to the 8,000 feet of altitude. So these guys were absolutely crawling.

Their form looked the same to me at this laughably easy pace.

That sounds pretty interesting. What else did you experience whilst you were there?

I think people are often discoordinated at these slower speeds and so lots of things results from that. Muscle soreness will occur, weaknesses such as an ITB problem might surface, and psychologically, it isn't comfortable to do something that is uncoordinated so there is a natural aversion.

But becoming accustomed to them is only a matter of time.

Bigmizunga wrote:

I went to Kenya three years ago for a 3 month training session, and while most of the runs in the morning were anywhere from 4:30-5:45 pace, the evening runs we're literally a crawl. If I had started walking I would have dropped them. If I had to guess, we were doing about 15 minute miles. And these were sub 60 half marathoners. They made these crawls look much more comfortable than me and I had trouble going that slow.

I've always done this, and can run any pace. My best friend who I trained with a couple times a week for many years, had great difficulty running any slower than 6:30-7 minutes a mile. The only times we ran together were on faster days.

Not a sub-4 guy, but one who occasionally runs with folks who run 9 minutes or slower. As long as there is a conversation (or, if I am allowed a monologue when full conversation is uncomfortable for the slower one), I really don't even think about how slow the pace is.

It helps to do these types of runs at the end of a workout.

the clarifier wrote:

Not a sub-4 guy, but one who occasionally runs with folks who run 9 minutes or slower. As long as there is a conversation (or, if I am allowed a monologue when full conversation is uncomfortable for the slower one), I really don't even think about how slow the pace is.

It helps to do these types of runs at the end of a workout.

I agree on both points. As long as you're amused somehow, I don't find it to be that bad. If I was alone it would just be boring as hell.

(4:25 mile)

smd wrote:

In Kenya I joined Issac Songok and Augustine Choge on some of their recovery runs. We would do short (4 miles?) loops slower than I ran the loops with my wife, who was barely running at the time and unused to the 8,000 feet of altitude. So these guys were absolutely crawling.

I wrote a type A friend of mine, the type who checks splits on every run, about this, and he wrote back how stupid this was for them, how it was going to mess up their form, how they'd be better sitting around.

I wrote back, "I'm going to go with the sub-13:00 guys on this one."

Their form looked the same to me at this laughably easy pace.

I've said this for years about slow runs, but, no one seems to hear the message. Americans are obsessed with pushing the limits all the time. I really think it's more of a mindset issue than anything. We in America are really no pain no gain when it comes to anything that requires effort. Look at Kenya in general, they know how to relax and totally chill. How many times did you see kids just sitting by the side of the road watching life go by? Here, we would yell at our kids for sitting there doing "nothing". Yet, when it comes time to work, they know how to work infinitely harder than we do. That shows in their success with running.

Years ago when I was still somewhat competitive as a masters runner, a Kenyan woman was my roommate at the host hotel of a race. She invited me to warmup and cooldown with all of her friends insisting that the pace would not be fast at all. During the cooldown, I'm sure we were running slower than 10-12 minute miles even though all of them had finished at the top of the race results. It was really fun and, after that experience, I started to do all my cooldown runs at a much slower pace.

Thanks for this fantastic anecdote. I find it interesting that you say that their form looked the same.

smd wrote:

In Kenya I joined Issac Songok and Augustine Choge on some of their recovery runs. We would do short (4 miles?) loops slower than I ran the loops with my wife, who was barely running at the time and unused to the 8,000 feet of altitude. So these guys were absolutely crawling.

I wrote a type A friend of mine, the type who checks splits on every run, about this, and he wrote back how stupid this was for them, how it was going to mess up their form, how they'd be better sitting around.

I wrote back, "I'm going to go with the sub-13:00 guys on this one."

Their form looked the same to me at this laughably easy pace.

alright bro, I'm sub 4, it pretty much feels like it does when anyone runs 9 minute pace.... SLOWWWWWWWW..... I mean come on. I've walked a 4:08 and it feels quite similar to a 9 min mile by myself.... oh wait, a 9 minute mile feels like I'm a world class speed walker, which I'm not, therefore I feel like every other runner who can run under 5 flat... and in all seriousness I am a sub 4 miler bro.... done it twice man!

TrackCoach wrote:

A sub-4 athletes runs about 7 minutes on a cool down, 8 minutes would be considered a jog and is about the slowest they could run and feel comfortable. 9 minutes per mile causes an ilregular gaite and is uncomfortable.

With that said, there are a lot of elite athletes who run with their spouses and friends at an uncomfortably slow pace. If your wife wants you to run with her, you are not going to say no, no matter how slow she runs...that's what's called be a supportive husband.

True, True coach...the thing that sucks if you are a high level athlete is when your wife/girlfriend runs too fast.

If they run slow, we can trest run as warmup thing or walk some of it so that we don't get messed up by going too slow....but it's the good womens runners who always run too hard on warmup...or the day after a hard race.

A little tough for our male egos to say "damn woman...you're running too fast".