The magical "7 - Minute" mile

all that stuff about older runners understanding recovery is b.s., because almost everyone runs faster in college than at any time after. maybe the recovery is good because it lengthens the time you're able and willing to be a distance runner, but where is the large group of post-collegians running sub-25 8k comparable stuff? there are plenty of collegians doing that. maybe it's partly because the collegians are putting it all out there. that's what I did until I got injured (and the point is that you have to risk something to get anywhere) and I did improve a lot. now i am old and have to take some easy days because i'm always on the verge of an injury, but I have improved consistently, and beaten all of my higher distance college pr's this year because I take risks in my training, pushing the pace in all the hard workouts and running 'easy' runs at sub 7 instead of 8 (the difference from college is that I take occasional recovery days where I maintain the mileage around 10-14, but run at 8 minute pace).

If anyone out there knows for sure please confirm this... but I have been told that the Wisconsin team logs everything at 7:00 miles (Wisconsin miles) Theory is that they run a lot of miles under 7:00 and some miles slightly over 7:00. Obviously they average much faster but that puts more miles on their legs than they think.

I ran 3.47 1500 in college and 24.10 for 8k and did alot of running with my girlfriend and slower guys. Alot of the guys on the team ran too hard on their easy days so I would run with girls or with slower kids on the team. I found it helped me get strong for my workouts and feel good most of the time.

Nothin wrong with running 7 minute pace dude.

I just started running after college and became a 31:00 10k guy. Almost none of my training was ever slower than 6:15 per mile pace. Of course, I'm virtually a cripple now, so...

I'm not sure why you would even find out what pace you are running on easy days, it can only hurt you. Just go out and do what feels easy and will help you recover, some days thats 6:00 other days its 7:00. Who really gives a shit? As long as you are tearing up your workouts and getting a lot of miles in it won't matter.