Unpopular opinion for hobby joggers

You mean 2:10 and 3:40 if you are male because it’s the same difference, no prize money or podium

The point of the post is if you just run a lot and push yourself you'll get a lot faster. If you are new at any sport that'll help you improve, just practice and work hard and you'll get better.

Depending on your age and gender, 3:30 and 3:40 could be the difference between qualifying for Boston and not qualifying.

Or it could be the difference between winning an AG award and not winning an award.

In the big scheme of the things, neither an AG award in you local marathon nor qualifying for Boston really matters. But that's true about 99% of things we do in life.

I dont know.

You have to get a feel for the pace one way or the other. And get economical at race pace. Variation is good.

If you do it by timed, structured interval sessions or a lot of racing (2-4 per month) is up to you but you def need it.

I just laugh when I hear about a 4 hour marathon person.

HRE, given the popularity of the Norwegian Singles long running thread. Were there any successful runners from your era that loosely followed such an approach, I.e. 3 tempo type sessions per week, with nothing harder/faster?

Agreed. And in the grand scheme of thing qualifying for the Olympic trials doesn't mean a lot. Qualifying for the Olympics does, but OTQ doesn't.

Most recreational runners do not have the ability to just do more training, in the short term. They have no issue pushing themselves until they exceed their bodies' capacity to adapt to exercise. Their problem is that they don't string together consistent training for years and years, so they never increase their training capacity.

I think the OP is basically right about the needless complexity of many training plans, and that goes for elites too. Coaching is still more art than science, and the real trick is just to get the training load right: always enough to cause adaptation, steadily increasing as fitness increases, timed to produce peak fitness at the right time. Truly great coaches know how to do this, regardless of their knowledge of exercise physiology.

I mean you aren't wrong. As a hobby jogger, the biggest problem is my diet / drinking.

The increasing numbers of recreational runners signing up to the Runna app, suggests that training will become even more complicated.

I don't think beginners don't need a plan. I think they need a simple plan and one that gives them some control and the opportunity to learn more about themselves and training.

Every beginner that's going on about lactate and HR zones and all that is likely only hurting themselves. They're never going to learn about the all important "feel" of a workout.

An experienced runner can find themselves in a foreign location, no GPS watch, on a hilly road. They could use their feel to run a 20 minute tempo. Despite the fact that maybe they don't run that many hills normally, or maybe this place is hotter /colder/windier/whatever-er than their usual place, they can still gauge their effort and keep it at a tempo pace. They can finish the workout and say, "That's a nice hill, I'll do 4 of them." They time one, it's 15 seconds at a good clip. They suspect it's 100ish meters. Doesn't really matter. They know the effort they put in was good.

Many inexperienced runners are going to have trouble with all of this uncertainty.

When I've written plans for my less experienced friends I try to emphasize this sense of feel. There's no defined easy pace, it's whatever feels easy that day. Of course it can't all be totally vague, track reps get times or time ranges, but I tell them, "Hey, it's gonna be hot, so don't be surprised if you're a bit slow, that's okay." Tempos and fartleks are often based on their perception of the pace, "Do 5x5 minutes at what feels like a pace you could hold for roughly an hour," or, "Cutdown from marathon effort to 10k effort for 20 minutes."

Correct. It might depend what type of runner you are. In the Sports Gene Epstein wrote that some people can race better off of mostly mileage and tempos while others are super-responders to more intense intervals.

But the reason I don't train the way OP suggests (steady mileage and sometimes go faster) is it's insanely boring. Even when I'm not training "hard," I usually do a couple intense interval days a week, a couple days on the bike trainer, and a couple easy/weight days.

One of the strangest things about this website is the sheer number of threads where a dedicated amateur pontificates to other dedicated amateurs about how embarrassing it is to be a dedicated amateur.

This whole “training is actually really simple, especially for you, embarrassing dedicated amateur!” shtick is definitely the perfect encapsulation of that. And I say that as someone who’s running Norwegian Singles week in week out, so I’m obviously not into complicating things. But I’m also not going to bash people who obviously enjoy discussing training — part of their love of distance running is learning about training approaches, debating their merits, trying them out, etc.

I get the self-effacing hobby jogger joke. There are definitely people that take themselves and their running way too seriously. But it’s so overwrought at this point, especially in a thread like this.

A hobby in fact is something one does for enjoyment. The details in training, nutrition and pacing can be fun and entertaining. Sure, it’s not going to make or break you, but it’s fun to immerse yourself into something you enjoy.

Right, once you understand the basics, consistency and talent trump designer training plans. Its humbling to waste hours reading training theory and carefully planning your runs for a week only to get beat by a more talented guy who "just runs, sometimes hard if he feels like it". There is nothing wrong with reading training theory and meticulously planning workout though - there are worse things to do with your time. Some people can't stop thinking about running because their lives are dull or they have to live dull lives to stay consistent with running, so whatever.

Except that OP is correct. I know more “Dedicated Amatuers” than most. Even when training for a major they get up to about 50mpw. That’s not professional mileage. So, the way for them to get faster is to simply run more miles.

Some are too ready to label runners as hobby joggers.

There was a female who just ran Boston in 2:53. Obviously a HJ time, hopefully she

didn’t waste her time with workouts.

beginners need:

lots of easy running

hill reps (instead of track work or whatever)

diagonals, or straights n curves

1 long run per week.

you can do this for a long time before you need to get into the nitty gritty.

Go look at Bill Rogers 1975 Training Log.

The “Nitty Gritty” was an occasional 800s or Mile Repeat session. The rest was mileage about 130 a week when peaking.