Care to post a link to any 2:20 marathoner who does 60%+ of their training at 9:30 pace. Pretty much every sub 2:25 person I see is doing easy runs at 6:00-7:00 pace with the occasional morning run where they stagger around at 8:00 before doing the real workout of the day at the faster pace
Not exactly what you're looking for, but a 2:25 guy who does a lot of 9:00+ jogging.
If you are young, (in high school / college) there is absolutely no reason for you to running easy days in the 8 minutes. You have a body that is very capable of fully recovering after a solid pace. Don't ruin your running potential because of this bullsh*t nonsense about easy days.
I noticed the correct answers get downvoted hard here. I assume this is because most of the guys on letsrun are old folk who don't understand how fast a young runner can recover.
If you are worried about not recovering or burning out take an ice bath and get 10 hours of sleep. simple.
Simple Forumla - don't run easy days (that pathetic 8-9 pace nonsense)! run solid days! don't go into this weak mentally that brings everyone down with you, also treasuring your "easy days"
IMO, the problem is the term “Easy.”
It’s Aerobic Base training and there’s a sweet spot for achieving optimal results.
If you are young, (in high school / college) there is absolutely no reason for you to running easy days in the 8 minutes. You have a body that is very capable of fully recovering after a solid pace. Don't ruin your running potential because of this bullsh*t nonsense about easy days.
I noticed the correct answers get downvoted hard here. I assume this is because most of the guys on letsrun are old folk who don't understand how fast a young runner can recover.
If you are worried about not recovering or burning out take an ice bath and get 10 hours of sleep. simple.
Simple Forumla - don't run easy days (that pathetic 8-9 pace nonsense)! run solid days! don't go into this weak mentally that brings everyone down with you, also treasuring your "easy days"
IMO, the problem is the term “Easy.”
It’s Aerobic Base training and there’s a sweet spot for achieving optimal results.
If you are young, (in high school / college) there is absolutely no reason for you to running easy days in the 8 minutes. You have a body that is very capable of fully recovering after a solid pace. Don't ruin your running potential because of this bullsh*t nonsense about easy days.
I noticed the correct answers get downvoted hard here. I assume this is because most of the guys on letsrun are old folk who don't understand how fast a young runner can recover.
If you are worried about not recovering or burning out take an ice bath and get 10 hours of sleep. simple.
Simple Forumla - don't run easy days (that pathetic 8-9 pace nonsense)! run solid days! don't go into this weak mentally that brings everyone down with you, also treasuring your "easy days"
IMO, the problem is the term “Easy.”
It’s Aerobic Base training and there’s a sweet spot for achieving optimal results.
100%. It's Aerobic base training and it matters a lot more than people here think it does.
Some runner started calling them "easy days," and everyone bought into it. It should be called "it matters don't slack off days."
How about the vast majority of elite Japanese marathoners? Yuki for example has said he does all his easy runs around 5 min/km (8:02/mile). The guy i mentioned who does a bunch of runs at 9:30 pace is an outlier for sure, but I’m just using him to demonstrate a point that easy pace is not that important as long as it’s not too fast.
8:02 is almost 90s faster than 9:30. Again post a link to a 2:20 running that slow.
There’s a local guy here in Redondo Beach who ran at the 2020 marathon trials, Cheyne Inman. I believe he qualified at CIM 2018 but not 100% sure. A quick look at his Strava will show a LOT of running north of 9 minute pace in his build up to his OTQ.
8:02 is almost 90s faster than 9:30. Again post a link to a 2:20 running that slow.
There’s a local guy here in Redondo Beach who ran at the 2020 marathon trials, Cheyne Inman. I believe he qualified at CIM 2018 but not 100% sure. A quick look at his Strava will show a LOT of running north of 9 minute pace in his build up to his OTQ.
Feel free to figure out his average pace.
Meanwhile you can have any of a zillion Kenyans post there training and you will a bunch of woman running 6-7 min miles at altitude with 2nd and 3rd runs a bit easier. You can choose to focus on those 2nd runs but the meat of the work is in the first section. This stuff goes back to Lydiard where he talked about running fast enough to get the benefits and slow enough not to strain. For dudes like Snell that was 6-6:30 pace...
People are stuck with the mindset that too fast is bad so therefore slow is better. It isn't. Blasting sub 6:30s in HS when we were ~16min runners was doable but excessive. We would have been better off backing off to 7:00. But we would have been much worse running 9:30.
it’s funny when I went to college running all the fast guys would go fast on easy days and the slow runners would bit*h about it. in the end, who were the ones winning and losing?
8:02 is almost 90s faster than 9:30. Again post a link to a 2:20 running that slow.
There’s a local guy here in Redondo Beach who ran at the 2020 marathon trials, Cheyne Inman. I believe he qualified at CIM 2018 but not 100% sure. A quick look at his Strava will show a LOT of running north of 9 minute pace in his build up to his OTQ.
There is a point of diminishing returns. At 9 min pace, he’s getting MOST of the benefits. That’s fine for a recreational runner but if you’re trying for a time qualifier, you want ALL the benefits, and a 4:15 to 4:30 miler is not getting that at 9 min pace.
from my experience, one of the best indicators that a runner will have a lackluster season is if they: take their easy days being easy more seriously than their workouts.
People are stuck with the mindset that too fast is bad so therefore slow is better. It isn't. Blasting sub 6:30s in HS when we were ~16min runners was doable but excessive. We would have been better off backing off to 7:00. But we would have been much worse running 9:30.
I doubt it would’ve made a difference. When you’re that young you can get away with a lot and you probably weren’t doing super high mileage which is when going too fast on Aerobic Base days can become a recovery problem.
People are stuck with the mindset that too fast is bad so therefore slow is better. It isn't. Blasting sub 6:30s in HS when we were ~16min runners was doable but excessive. We would have been better off backing off to 7:00. But we would have been much worse running 9:30.
I doubt it would’ve made a difference. When you’re that young you can get away with a lot and you probably weren’t doing super high mileage which is when going too fast on Aerobic Base days can become a recovery problem.
this is true. it is ok for 16k 5k xc kids to run 6:30 pace on their easy days as long as they get good sleep and aren't running 50+ mpw
If you can run a little faster and still feel good for your sessions. Then you probably should. If you start feeling tired for sessions, youve gone too fast
i usually run between 6-7.5 miles on my easy days @7:50-8:10 pace, long runs usually 12 miles @7:40 or faster if feeling good, i run 50 mpw and have been improving very quickly (ran 18:45 in xc, and now split that comfortably on tempos). when looking at strava and talking to other runners around my speed and even slower, they always run much faster than me on their easy days and seem to recover fine
freshman year track season was my first time ever running, so i’m wondering if it just has to do with lifetime miles? my threshold pace (by effort atleast) has gotten much faster but my easy pace has mostly stayed the same.
Your easy pace is just fine. Keep doing what's working and don't pay attention to the kids running sub-7:00 pace every run even though they only run 17 or 18:xx.
People are stuck with the mindset that too fast is bad so therefore slow is better. It isn't. Blasting sub 6:30s in HS when we were ~16min runners was doable but excessive. We would have been better off backing off to 7:00. But we would have been much worse running 9:30.
Yes, 16:00 5k runners can run 7:00 pace no problem and still be fine for workouts. Although, tbh, for most runners 16:00-16:45ish, the difference between doing easy runs at 7:00 pace vs. 7:30 pace is negligible.
It's the workouts and the races that make you into a better 5k runner.
since you are improving doesn't it make sense that you are the one doing it right and everyone else who is running their recovery days faster is doing it wrong.
Aurthur Lydiard said, "you cannot go too slow for aerobic development".
I have been feeling tired lately, so some of my runs include miles over 9:00 which feels terribly slow...and I too wonder, 'is this doing me any good?' But in past years when I had done the slow mileage, it has worked. So I am sticking with it.
What's working for me is going by a loose HR correlation--i.e. that as I run by effort more and more, EZ runs naturally will drop the HR range at the same time.
I started running 1/29. EZ runs were 10:40-11:00 pace (VERY slow) at 155 but I was patient and just ran by feel. I also had a plantar issue to deal with due to heel-striking and I wasn't doing enough active warmups to get the hams/quads warm and improve the gait/footstrike.
I got to the point around April where my EZ effort was 9:30-9:45 but the HR was down to 145-150.
Now, 9:30 pace for an EZ run is around 135-138. 10:00 pace is around 125-128. If I want to push it a little so I don't grey-zone it but I am pressed for time, I can run 9:00 pace around 145-150 and hang there for 10-15 miles with no problem.
Did 7 today EZ in 64-ish, with HR around 145-147, then came back at current MP effort in 54-ish for 7 (7:44 pace), with my HR around 165-170-ish. I ballpark it b/c I don't want to get too into the numbers with it, just a general range b/c heart rates WILL fluctuate day-to-day. So 14 in 1:58. Not fast but I'm able to run 7 miles at current MP and feel strong.
here is a little anecdote for you. In college I was on the team with the NAIA National CC champ. You would think that I and the other guys on the team would be following what he was doing, but we didn't. On his easy days he ran so slow almost no one ever ran with him. I wish I could tell what pace he was running but since I never ran with him, and never ask, I don't know. I'm not even sure how fast I was going as no one was ever timing these runs - so this is pure speculation. I would say I was going 7:00 pace (but it certainly could have been faster = possibly 6:30) and the national champ - could have be closer to 8:00. I never ran slow....as few years after college a few of us would get together for longs am runs and it seemed like we were going over 7:00 (and I absolutely hated it - it felt so slow and pointless...but guess what, I started getting faster on my tempos). The only thing I can attribute this to was going slow for the first time, and going longish - these were 14 mile runs. I rarely went over 10 before that. My times improved from 25:30 8k (both on the roads and in CC meets) to 23;45 in about 9 months not by running more miles (my mileage was actually going down) but from these longer slower runs.
here is a little anecdote for you. In college I was on the team with the NAIA National CC champ. You would think that I and the other guys on the team would be following what he was doing, but we didn't. On his easy days he ran so slow almost no one ever ran with him. I wish I could tell what pace he was running but since I never ran with him, and never ask, I don't know. I'm not even sure how fast I was going as no one was ever timing these runs - so this is pure speculation. I would say I was going 7:00 pace (but it certainly could have been faster = possibly 6:30) and the national champ - could have be closer to 8:00. I never ran slow....as few years after college a few of us would get together for longs am runs and it seemed like we were going over 7:00 (and I absolutely hated it - it felt so slow and pointless...but guess what, I started getting faster on my tempos). The only thing I can attribute this to was going slow for the first time, and going longish - these were 14 mile runs. I rarely went over 10 before that. My times improved from 25:30 8k (both on the roads and in CC meets) to 23;45 in about 9 months not by running more miles (my mileage was actually going down) but from these longer slower runs.
That's a great story! I think longer, slower runs have their place. HR monitors (even somewhat inaccurate wrist monitors) give you a *rough* idea of effort. Even if you don't look at the paces/times on them, I'm noticing that just sticking to zones has helped me stay disciplined for EZ runs (i.e. I often don't really know my EZ pace until after the run is done, but I know to keep the HR--like a speedometer in a car--under 148-150-ish for all of the EZ run).
It allows one to go crush tempos and hard workouts. EZ runs are basically bridges between LRs and workouts.
Strava time may show up slow (9:10-9:55 on EZ days) but I'm all good.
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