Now I see why you can't get away with not doing speedwork

HRE wrote:

Mark Nenow, Bill Adcocks, Ron Clarke, Trevor Vincent, Tony Cook, Derek Clayton come quickly to mind.

Thanks for the list. I was just curious because the other guy seemed to be using his slow marathon as evidence that one can run fast without speed work. I wasn't really seeing the connection he was trying to make.

I thought up that list because while I've known of people who do quite well without doing speedwork, I didn't think that someone getting under three hours for the marathon was all that convincing.

Steve Cram averaged 60-70 miles per week during most winters running at steady state (5 min/mile for him) for nearly all of his runs. His speed was good (although not as good as Coe/Ovett).

I think that you are running your easy mileage too fast. You are simply too tired to run speedwork after 90 miles of 7 min miles. You should run your easy mileage slow enough that you can still hit your goal pace during workouts.

dsrunner wrote:

you need to do more work below 6 pace. you're gassed "aerobically" because that antiquated model of endurance performance is so flawed.

power (or lack thereof) also drives VO2.

start getting the lead out and stop fixating on mileage totals. if you could run 120 miles/week at 8 pace or 150 miles per week at 9 pace would you honestly expect it to be helpful?

running is about producing and maintaining power.

How does it work for guys like Mark Nenow? He ran 140 miles per week at a solid clip with no speedwork except hills along the route. Does his case violate the principle of specificity?

I've seen a picture of Nenow doing high knee drills with Marcus Ryfel and Cristoph Herle which seems odd if he was just a road and distance type guy.

Not to cast doubt on training schedules, but when you have a lot of these guys talk about training it is not gospel.

Read shorters biography, interviews, and then running with the legends. You get a consistent picture of his training, but not exact.

My suspicion is there are not really any guys who don't do any speedwork. It is just what they call speedwork...you might not and they don't note it. Nenow might be hammering up the hills on 2 or 3 days a week, which is a fartlek. On some days he might do strides, but not note it in training logs. There are a lot of days I do things that I might not write down as it doesn't really affect my overall mileage. If you are lacking speed incorporate days of strides, hills, or even 200m repeats at the end of runs during base phase.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "speedwork." Include strides at least 3 times a week and I think you would have been fine. Or maybe you are just more of a fast-twitch guy and high mileage wore you out.

I trained for a marathon this fall where I was really only doing mileage, strides, and a tempo run. I was amazed, but I did a half-marathon as a tune-up and was able to run 5:20 pace the whole way, even though the fastest I had run in training (again, aside from strides) was about 6 minute pace.

I did not do strides. Maybe that was my downfall.

What should they be like? 8 x 100m w/60 second rest?

Tis whole thing, though, just doesn't make sense from a physiological standpoint. Perhaps someone can offer that type of explanation. How do you develop the capacity ro run a HM at 5:20 pace when you're training at 6:00/mile top-end for distance runs and then sprinting for short bursts with the striders? The two systems have to meet somewhere in the middle don't they?

abort plan wrote:

I did not do strides. Maybe that was my downfall.

What should they be like? 8 x 100m w/60 second rest?

Tis whole thing, though, just doesn't make sense from a physiological standpoint. Perhaps someone can offer that type of explanation. How do you develop the capacity ro run a HM at 5:20 pace when you're training at 6:00/mile top-end for distance runs and then sprinting for short bursts with the striders? The two systems have to meet somewhere in the middle don't they?

You make adaptations to all paces, even when running well below the goal pace - it's called moving your lactate threshold up. Some would argue that it's pointless to be running goal pace if it's laborious, i.e., tapping into anaerobic zone - that just means your lactate threshold sucks and you need to work a bit easier to move the threshold up. For a very, very thorough explanation of this read HADD's epic thread on the topic. He uses heart rate as the metric but this can be applied similarly using concepts of easy and easy-moderate training.

I don't know what anyone else thinks, but your range of paces looks too narrow to me, to expect anything more.

Either some of your miles are too fast, or some others are too slow.

If 90 miles of 7:00 pace is something you consider easy running, then your tempo paces should be faster, maybe 5:45 - 6:00.

Or, if the right tempo pace is 6:00 - 6:15, then it seems that doing "most of" 90 miles at around 7:00 pace is too fast.

Also, I may be wrong and someone can correct me but I always thought the purpose of strides was simply to stay in touch with leg speed and other neuro-muscular mumbo jumbo adaptations required to race. They should be alactic (so short in time that you don't even dip into the anaerobic zone). They're simply a way to keep in touch with what "fast" feels like without the side effects of true anaerobic workouts. I personally find them hard to do as I stupidly run them as all out sprints - which they should not be from my understanding.

rekrunner wrote:

I don't know what anyone else thinks, but your range of paces looks too narrow to me, to expect anything more.

Either some of your miles are too fast, or some others are too slow.

If 90 miles of 7:00 pace is something you consider easy running, then your tempo paces should be faster, maybe 5:45 - 6:00.

Or, if the right tempo pace is 6:00 - 6:15, then it seems that doing "most of" 90 miles at around 7:00 pace is too fast.

You're responding from the POV of what is traditionally taught. But the premise of my experiment was to run at a moderate pace for most of the mileage and see how fast I could get off that type of training (eliminating workouts and the hard/easy mantra).

The result was a not being able to sustain sub-6 minute pace, whereas I can run around 6:30-7:00 quite easily. It's like you say, how could I expect anyhting else? When I start running 5:30-6:00 pace, my body has no idea how to handle that kind of stress.

But many people here are saying that it's possible to just work on LT and do striders and get the job done that way.

MikeM wrote:

My suspicion is there are not really any guys who don't do any speedwork. It is just what they call speedwork...you might not and they don't note it.

This. You and I might both job 30 minutes to the park, do 12 hard 200s, then jog 30 minutes back home. I might think I'm doing a 12X200m speed workout. You might think you're doing an easy run with some strides in the middle. I'll tell you that I did speed work today. You'll tell me that you didn't do speed work today. Yet we did the exact same workout.

matter of perception wrote:

MikeM wrote:

My suspicion is there are not really any guys who don't do any speedwork. It is just what they call speedwork...you might not and they don't note it.

This. You and I might both job 30 minutes to the park, do 12 hard 200s, then jog 30 minutes back home. I might think I'm doing a 12X200m speed workout. You might think you're doing an easy run with some strides in the middle. I'll tell you that I did speed work today. You'll tell me that you didn't do speed work today. Yet we did the exact same workout.

^^^BINGO^^^

because you were there for every word he said?

J.R. wrote:

Lydiard never said that.

you cannot outrun your genetics. you're slow. end of storyyou should be able to run 5 miles under 6 minute pace after taking a year off of running if you have any ability as a distance runner

abort plan wrote:

I tried just building mileage for a while and running at threshold level but that didn't get me too far. It really depends on what your goals are.

I ran 90 mile weeks with most of it around 7:00 pace. Three times a week I would pick up the pace to insert quality but could only get myself up to 6:00-6:15 pace on those tempo efforts( progressive, fast finish, or steady state throughout.

I didn't have the turnover for anything under 6:00 pace. And it wasn't just the turnover, I was also gassed aerobically.

I agree with the guy who said LT pace. Really? 7 min miles for 90 miles a week, and you are not getting hell of fast? Something is really wrong. Sit down, and think this through, you are doing something wrong. I know joggers that run 2hr 40 marathon running slower training times than you. At your level 2hr 20 to 30 marathon should be coreect.