GALEN RUPP Training runs

Holy crap, I can't believe this is still a debate.

Why is it so hard to believe that for a sub-27 10k guy, 5:40 IS easy? Maybe, just maaaaybe, when Salazar says "up to 6:00 pace" he isn't saying "Carve it in stone: Rupp always runs 5:59 pace or faster, regardless of if he's warming up, or dead tired, or running uphill, or at 10,000 feet of altitude."

I'd be pretty darn surprised if Rupp looked at his watch on a training run and said to Mo "Oh my stars, that last quarter-mile was 1:33, we better get a move on!"

If for some reason anyone cared, and asked me what my easy day pace was, I might say "well, I guess from 6:15-6:45" because yeah, on a normal easy day, assuming fairly normal conditions and nothing out of the ordinary physically, that's about what the bulk of my running turns out to be. If that same person then ran to the message board and said "guys, Grizz NEVER runs slower than 6:45 pace, easy is NOT a feeling, it's a pace!!!!" I'd groan and groan and groan.

Other than the fact that there's no reason for anyone to care how fast I do my easy runs, the same darn thing is happening here with Rupp.

To the OP: Rupp has been training with Salazar for years and years now. He's adapted to what he does very well. If you're just starting out, you're not going to be able to train nearly as hard as Rupp can, relative to your respective maxes. Don't go out and try to run at 6:30 pace. Run at a good, enjoyable effort- the kind where you're not straining, but you're not a chatty Cathy, either. This can be tough for young runners to do- they either hammer out the door or shuffle jog. Learn to find that happy medium of not-quite-easy-but-it-feels-pretty-fun. Maybe the first time you do, it's, I dunno, 6:53 pace, on a certain loop you like to do. Enjoy watching that pace tumble-without ANY change in effort-over the course of a summer. When you first start this, you'll be tired, and so days will be slower than others. That's ok! Effort matters more. The tiredness will pass and before you know you'll be saying "maybe I mismeasured the loop, there's no way 6:30 pace is this easy, I barely feel like I'm moving!"

Don't be afraid to slow down and get the effort right. On the flip side, if the effort is right, don't be intimidated by how fast the watch says you're going.

This!

I think a lot of the problem here is the misunderstanding about what a "recovery" run is. Too many people get the mistaken idea that you are recovering when you are running. Yes, in a relative sense you are, but recovery occurs when you are NOT running -- sleeping, eating, sitting, walking, etc. When you are running you are training. It's OK to call your runs "recovery" in a colloquial sense, but make no mistake about it, when you lace up your shoes and you go for a run, at any pace, you are training.

Recover when you stop.[/quote]

It seems quite simple. Below threshold is aerobic running. By nature staying aerobic remains fairly effortless. When you cross over to anaerobic metabolism the effort sense rises exponentially. So for that matter a guy who can run 4:20s for a 10k, seemingly 5:30 would be aerobic with room to spare. I can tell lots by how quickly I jaunt around town staying aerobic only. Easy is transient.

I can always tell within 10 seconds what kind of pace I am running, and unless I am sick or unusually beat up by something, that pace is essentially the same every day (of course as fitness improves, that pace slowly comes down). You are assuming that Rupp and everyone else follows your idea of effort, but that's just not true. I think it's a complete waste of my time to go out and jog at an easy effort, and it is very obvious from Salazar's quotes that this is his philosophy as well.

When I say I never run slower than 7:00 pace, I damn well mean it. That is an absolute, unless there is a cute girl involved!

the letter why wrote:

When I say I never run slower than 7:00 pace, I damn well mean it. That is an absolute, unless there is a cute girl involved!

What are your personal records?

You guys are funny, arguing over AlSal's words like their Holy Writ straight from the mouth of Jesus. Well that dude died 2k or so years ago, but Al is still around so ask Em.

5:40 pace for 26 min 10k runners is easy. But just because it works for Rupp doesn't mean it will work for you.

vary the length and pace of your daily runs. much better than

a 10 miler every day at the same pace. increase pace as get fitter.

27 min 10K runners can run 5:40 pace all day.

Part of the problem here is that some of you are conflating the terms “Easy days” and “Easy pace”. They are not the same.Easy Days = the days between your hard sessions. They are easy relative to the hard sessions. Some call them recovery days.Easy Pace = the effort of your training pace. It is not an empirical pace, it is a feel. You should know “easy” as well as you know “thirsty”, “hungry”,”sleepy”, “tired” or “horny”.

That’s NOT what Alberto said. (see below). He said he believes that “… they shouldn’t be running more than 1:30 per mile slower than what they do in a 5k race.”(8). His reference to the effort “moderately hard” was, “You can be running moderately hard on your easy days.(7)” That’s not the same as saying the pace on “easy days” is always moderately hard, or that 5:40 pace is moderately hard. In fact, he makes it clear that sometimes Ga-Mo will run 6:00 pace on their easy days. Is that a contradiction? Not at all.

What Alberto was clear on was that easy days shouldn’t be days of jogging, and that the efforts can vary. I can tell you with 100 percent certainty 5:40 is easy, in fact, very easy, for Ga-Mo. But that doesn’t prevent them from running harder than that on their easy days. Heck, 5:20-5:30 pace will be easy for them, as well. Sometimes 5:20-5:30 will be difficult. Alberto was very clear that moderately hard runs were fine, as well as slow as molasses 6:00 pace if needed.

The reference to feeling “tired” all the time had nothing to do with the pace of the easy days. It is the aggregate ebb and flow of fatigue accumulated during normal training. If you ever read Summer of malmo then you’ll recall my advice on fatigue to Terrance Mahon when he first stepped up to serious training. “It’s normal. It will pass.”

This is not rocket science. None of what Alberto said was anything new. I understood this when I was in high school 40 years ago. Others in the thread understood what was said. You can too.

Thanks for copying and pasting what's already been written on this thread.

What you still fail to grasp despite that, however, is that your "easy is a feel" is still not what Salazar has said.

I mean, just reread your post.

"Every day pace is 5:40".

"Mo was running 7:00 on his easy days...too slow."

Qualified paces.

"1:30 slower than what they do in a 5k race."

More qualified paces.

Not qualified "feelings", though to reiterate, "moderately hard...".

See? I copy and paste the same thing and understand what he ACTUALLY says.

You're just arguing for your feelings stuff just because you like to argue.

If it were all feelings neither that video or this discussion about the video would be taken place. Because clearly "feeling" just doesn't cut it. Farah was "feeling" and Farah was wrong!

NXN video watcher wrote:

-Thinks if you train yourself to run harder on easy days gradually then you can run moderately hard and still recover.

The real crux of the discussion.

Building up to running moderately hard and still recovering for key workouts is better than running easier so you feel better.

Malmo wants to talk about "feelings" and all but when it comes right down to it, you get better by training HARDER. Building up to the point where you can train harder on easy days and still recover is a big part of that. You can look on lots of threads on this site where guys post their training and you can see examples of 14-16 min guys running easy days at 7:15-7:45 pace. And they go on about easy days being "easy" because they've bought into this whole "feeling" thing that Malmo proselytizes.

But Salazar is talking about a change where your easy days become a bit faster and cause a bit more overall stress to the body. And yes, you're MORE TIRED all the time.

And no, that's not necessarily an EASY feeling.

Good Art wrote:

It seems quite simple. Below threshold is aerobic running. By nature staying aerobic remains fairly effortless. When you cross over to anaerobic metabolism the effort sense rises exponentially. So for that matter a guy who can run 4:20s for a 10k, seemingly 5:30 would be aerobic with room to spare. I can tell lots by how quickly I jaunt around town staying aerobic only. Easy is transient.

You don't seem to understand the term "aerobic".

The 5k is like 84% aerobic but running 5k pace isn't "easy".

Effort required to run a given pace is determined by a number of factors, metabolism and the results of said metabolism being only one small factor.

You think racing a half marathon is "easy"? But it's all aerobic! Right.

Rupp does some of his recovery runs in the pool in his yard.

malmo is spot on. it is semantics.

As you become fitter your easy pace

gets faster (this is also pointed out by Arthur).

Morning runs by Africans are often surprisingly slow.

How come, then, that malmo ran most of his easy days faster than 6 min pace?

My goodness you are thick-headed. I shouldn’t even bother to respond but I’ll do it one more time. Ugh…So far in this thread you have:1) incorrectly conflated two terms: “Easy days” and “Easy pace.” 2) you have taken two separate comments by Alberto, omitted context, then stitched them together to falsely create the impression that Alberto said something he didn’t. 3) you’ve taken my comment on what “easy pace” means, then falsely proclaiming that my “proselytizing” is responsible for others who run their easy days slower than paces that both Alberto and I think they should be run.

I never said that Salazar said that easy is a feel. I said that. He made no comment one way or the other. (I think that if you would ask him he'd certainly agree with me, though)

That’s not what Alberto said. You’ve deliberately omitted the phrasing (in bold) which gives the actual context:

………Salazar actually said,“they shouldn’t be running more than 1:30 per mile slower than what they do in a 5k race.”

That -1:30 would be 5:40 pace, which would be very easy for Ga-Mo.

“Moderately hard” IS a feeling, but once again you deliberately omitted (again, in bold) the proper context.

………Salazar actually said. “You can be running moderately hard on your easy days.

What YOU said (not Alberto) was:

Those leaps of logic are YOURS, Alberto didn’t say that.

No you didn’t. You deliberately omitted some of the actual wording of two different comments by Alberto, then completely out of your a$$ stitched them together to falsely represent Alberto as saying what he didn’t say.

No. Only one of us has presented a cogent analysis without omissions, or distortions or fabrications. That would be me.

Are you saying that Farah and many other sub 27:00/13:00 are “wrong”? Who the hell are you to make that determination? I happen to agree with Alberto, and have lived it since 1970, long before Alberto was even in high school. I certainly wouldn’t dare say that those wolrld class runners who sometimes slog at 7, 8 or even 9:00 mile pace are wrong.

Farah was simply “feeling” easy pace at 7:00 pace. I can guarantee you his easy pace actually began at about 5:30 pace. Easier pace might be 6:00. Easierer pace – 6:30. And Easiererer = 7:00. Get it? He just happened to choose 7:00 pace. Probably out of habit? Who knows? Who cares?

Nothing what I’ve said about “easy pace” has anything to do with running harder (or easier) on “easy days”. Nor has anything I’ve ever said has anything to do with guys running their easy days at 7:15 to 7:45 pace. That’s their choice, not mine. I can assure you that I would tell a 14:00 runner his easy pace should be about 6:00 a mile. I would have been saying that 30 years ago.

Done.

I don't know why you insist upon closing your eyes and not reading what I've written which clearly details how you are obviously missing quite a few points.

I don't know why I've bothered wasting my time talking to someone so fundamentally insecure as to be resolute in their proselytizing of some ideal despite probably the best coach in the world saying otherwise.

But hey, you're not training anyway so it doesn't matter to you, right? I, on the other hand, am in my prime. So I think I'll listen to what the best coach in the world says rather than a hard-headed megalomaniac who cares more about the last word than being right.

yyy wrote:

malmo is spot on. it is semantics.

As you become fitter your easy pace

gets faster (this is also pointed out by Arthur).

Morning runs by Africans are often surprisingly slow.

That has absolutely nothing to do with what's being discussed, nor even the subject at hand.

As I mentioned, read through training posts on here and witness the abundance of people "running by feel" who are doing easy runs 2:30-3:00s a mile slower than 5k pace. Because you can find loads of that.

The "easy is a feeling" thing is old-school. Salazar is changing it up. Just look what he did with Farah.

idiot alert wrote:

How come, then, that malmo ran most of his easy days faster than 6 min pace?

How come if what? Give a little more context than that, bro.

easy apparently is a pace wrote:

I don't know why you insist upon closing your eyes and not reading what I've written which clearly details how you are obviously missing quite a few points.

I don't know why I've bothered wasting my time talking to someone so fundamentally insecure as to be resolute in their proselytizing of some ideal despite probably the best coach in the world saying otherwise.

But hey, you're not training anyway so it doesn't matter to you, right? I, on the other hand, am in my prime. So I think I'll listen to what the best coach in the world says rather than a hard-headed megalomaniac who cares more about the last word than being right.

I haven't missed anything nor am I "proselytizing". I've identified where you have omitted, conflated and distorted the facts.

You're just flat out nuts.