Salazar claims Farah & Rupp run 5:30 pace on easy days - true or false?

coach d wrote:

There\'s probably a frame of reference issue with people who are much slower than whom they are talking about. Bob Kennedy with Kim MacDonald ran 5:40 pace for easy workouts, and let\'s not forget Bekele\'s supposed 30 mile runs in the forest...at altitude...at 5:40 pace. Lagat and El Guerrouj (and Cram) didn\'t appear to run anything that slow. For an NCAA finalist running somewhere around 15:30 (4:20 mile), adding 1:30 would be close to 6 min, which is also standard.

If you take 70-75% rather than pace plus 1:30, someone with a race pace of ~4:00 would be running recovery about 5:30, while someone running 5:00 pace (25% slower) is going to be going close to 7 min, and that is probably more representative of people posting here.

Im surprised by this. Im not a long distance runner, but know several. None of them are even close to the pace you talk about on their easy days. And they are all way faster than 15.30. 6min mile = 3.43/km. Thats fast. The ones I know about (and it seems to be this way in Scandinavia) runs their easy runs always slower than 4min/km, and often more like 4.40/km or slower, but thats also including varied terrain for some of the runs.

Its always this when I read in here, people always talk about surprisingly fast easy paces, far faster than anyone I know, but every single time they mention their time its always much slower than what the guys I know run.

Whats up with Americans running so fast on their easy/recovery days?

coach d wrote:

That would be 13:30 pace for an NCAA finalist at 4:20 pace, not 15:30.

Well that changes it a bit, but my question still remains.

coach d wrote:

let's not forget Bekele's supposed 30 mile runs in the forest...at altitude...at 5:40 pace.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Bekele did these 30 mile runs.

Look, 5:30 pace is easy for these guys, I'm sure, but setting a minimum pace for recovery days is kind of stupid. There's a number of factors which dictate how fast you should run after a hard effort - aerobic capacity is just one of them.

Scandinavian Fellow wrote:

Im surprised by this. Im not a long distance runner, but know several. None of them are even close to the pace you talk about on their easy days. And they are all way faster than 15.30. 6min mile = 3.43/km. Thats fast. The ones I know about (and it seems to be this way in Scandinavia) runs their easy runs always slower than 4min/km, and often more like 4.40/km or slower, but thats also including varied terrain for some of the runs.

Its always this when I read in here, people always talk about surprisingly fast easy paces, far faster than anyone I know, but every single time they mention their time its always much slower than what the guys I know run.

Whats up with Americans running so fast on their easy/recovery days?

Same here in Europe, i only know one german runner who does all his running at 3:30-3:40/km pace (5:50-6min/m) and he is a 13:12 guy.

Sub 30 guys do it around 7min/mile pace which seemingly is slower than every college team in the states.

Has to do with mentality and the unit conversions. Like 'i wanna become good so i have to push the pace' whereas here most of the runners go in the nature, get the distance in and maybe run some hills.

Despite the lack of good performances from europeans (i don't count in Farah), a fast easy run pace doenst seem to have a big impact on race times and is not worth the added stress. Far too many people burn out on that and Baumann i.e. went like 7-8min/mile on his easy days. Could have been faster with quicker pace on easy days? Don't think so.

Why is this so hard? They do not differ between "recovery" and "easy" runs. And if their legs are beat up they hit the underwater treadmill.

to add:

'easy' is a feel and you CAN get used to faster 'easy' runs so 6:30 miles feels as easy as 7:30miles do but this is very dangerous for low-developed runners. The exception would be 400/800 guys who should never really jog around but endurance-based runners should start slow and build volume first.

Run with Kenyans on a 'jog' and you know what i mean. 'Pole pole my friend, we jog. If you wanna run go over there.'

Scandinavian Fellow wrote:

Im surprised by this. Im not a long distance runner, but know several. None of them are even close to the pace you talk about on their easy days. And they are all way faster than 15.30. 6min mile = 3.43/km. Thats fast. The ones I know about (and it seems to be this way in Scandinavia) runs their easy runs always slower than 4min/km, and often more like 4.40/km or slower, but thats also including varied terrain for some of the runs.

Its always this when I read in here, people always talk about surprisingly fast easy paces, far faster than anyone I know, but every single time they mention their time its always much slower than what the guys I know run.

Whats up with Americans running so fast on their easy/recovery days?

It's interesting you say that, because I remember from my college days (which ended very recently) it was always our foreign guys (and freshman) that would run their easy days the fastest. We didn't have many, but the 1-3 guys at a time that we'd have from another country would always seem to be rolling 5:45-6:15 or so by a couple miles in, while myself and the group of other Americans would jog around at 6:40-7:30 usually - and we were all (well, at least 7-10 of us) 28:20-29:30 10k athletes.

Granted, I never had a German or someone from a Scandinavian nation on the team. We did have a Czech, though...he took his easy days chill with us.

MrGambinus wrote:

Run with Kenyans on a 'jog' and you know what i mean. 'Pole pole my friend, we jog. If you wanna run go over there.'

Exactly. If there is anybody who knows how to REALLY jog, it's the east africans.

Easy days = extremely easy. Hard days = very hard.

That seems to be the idea of Mutai also:

"When not running fast-paced long runs or speed workouts, Mutai takes it slow and easy, at least that’s how he sees two-hour runs at roughly an 8-minute mile pace. Monday, Wednesday and Friday feature morning and afternoon workouts that basically serve as medium-length recovery runs. The idea is to make sure his legs are primed and ready to go hard on the days when the schedule calls for it."

And I don't believe that he means 5:30-pace when he refers to "slow and easy"....

But maybe he should ask Salazar to coach him, so he can learn how to run properly?

I think it depends on what training phase you're in. In a pre-race period you just alternate between very hard and very easy days. However during the base phase you probably have it more uniform -"easy days" are not thas easy, "hard days" are not that hard, you run at some "medium" pace most of the time.

I don't think they run their entire run at 5:30 pace. I used to run 6:10 pace on easy days. Sometimes I'd start day dreaming and find my pace is faster than usual. The run is supposed to be comfortable. If a 5:30 pace is comfortable for them, then so what.

wtfunny wrote:

i kinda like running wrote:

...

If I'm your average hobby jogger and my 5k race pace is 6:00-6:05, that would be an easy day pace of about 8:00/mile. Very do-able.

The 'average hobby jogger' doesn't run a 5k race pace anywhere NEAR 6:00-6:05 /mile. Try 8-9 mins/mile.

Well, that was just an example. I didn't mean to imply that 6:00 pace is the average among all hobby joggers. But an 18:00 min guy is still a hobby jogger. What do you call someone who narrowly misses a top 5 showing at the local fun run? Elite?

MrGambinus wrote:

Has to do with mentality and the unit conversions. Like 'i wanna become good so i have to push the pace' whereas here most of the runners go in the nature, get the distance in and maybe run some hills.

The easy paces being posted here aren't "pushing the pace," far from it. 5:30 pace for Galen is jogging. 7:00 pace for a 15:30 guy is easy. Yes there are people who push easy days too hard, but they are not in the ranges we are talking about here. Like a 15:30 guy could probably go hammer 6:00 pace every day if he really wanted.

Link wrote:

Look, 5:30 pace is easy for these guys, I'm sure, but setting a minimum pace for recovery days is kind of stupid. There's a number of factors which dictate how fast you should run after a hard effort - aerobic capacity is just one of them.

Others have expressed this sentiment too. I'd advise them to read the RT article that I think spurred this discussion. 5:30 is not a "minimum:" Salazar explicitly says that they don't start out at this pace, but that he expects them to end up doing the bulk of easy days at around this pace.

True. Read this in running times article on mo Farah.

5:30 pace is not fast for 12:45/12:50 5000 meter specialists.

Keepin it Real wrote:

5:30 pace is not fast for 12:45/12:50 5000 meter specialists.

So why then is Geoffroy Mutai (27:10 10k road PR) running so much distance @ 8 min/mile pace? He's running the shit out of guys like Rupp and Farah (27:43 10k road PR) and everybody else. But he keeps his easy days easy and he trains without a "professor coach".

I don't think the pace is hard for Galen but i just wanted to point out that it is NOT necessary run this fast on easy days or a MUST to do 5k pace+1:30. There are elites who do easy days way slower and its ok for them.

Thats the important thing for the visitors here to take away instead of automatically trying to duplicate what their current idol does.

Running distance at one's Maximum aerobic pace is not some new concept.

Fifty years ago Lydiard advocated running your distance runs at your Maximum aerobic pace . He attributed Ron Clarke's improvement to gradually going faster on his runs. Once he learned fast aerobic training Clarke cut out a good amount of the interval training that killed him as a Jr.,and he began to haul down WR's.

The running logs of Bill Rodger's ,Foster, Viren ,and many of the elites of the past often characterize their distance run pace as "steady' as in steady state.

For these elites steady state pace was sub 6min, miles.

Perhaps the best method to employ when seeking long term development as a runner is to gradually increase the pace of your distance runs. This concept is foreign to most high school coach's as their athlete's either blast intervals or jog their distance runs.

Pulse reading is a fairly objective way of measuring your effort. For most good runners a good steady state effort is somewhere in the 145 Bp/min. range.