What pace should you run your long runs over the winter?

Pikachu wrote:

I would throw the stopwatch away and go by feel. First half normal easy pace, second half progressing to medium effort and on good days last quarter close to projected marathon pace. And do not run sub 6' right now. Ease into it. Like this (just an idea):

week 1: 70' easy.

week 2: 80' easy.

week 3: 70' easy - moderate.

week 4: 90' easy.

week 5: 90' easy-medium.

week 6: 75' moderate.

week 7: 90' moderate.

week 8: 40' moderate, 25' med., 15' MP.

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Play with the duration and paces! If the single session is at 7:22 or 6:15 per mile is not as important right now than progressing so that you are the fittest when it matters and consistency.

Just my two cents.

Great advice. That's exactly what I would have said. Start slow/easy. Warm gently into the run, so that perceived effort, in the first 45-60 minutes, is never particularly hard. The first run at a given distance/duration should just get the miles in. Once you've established your ability to run for that duration without problems, begin to open it up in the second half.

I routinely start my two-hour runs with a HR of 70-75% of max. Keeping perceived effort relatively consistent, with a breathing rate of 3/3, my HR slowly rises to 85% of max, which is basically marathon pace. This is in accord with John Kellogg's recommendations.

85% is notably hard early in the run, but it's NOT particularly hard in the second half of the run, if you've warmed slowly into the run. JK talks about the "full of run" feeling. That is what the HS runner should be cultivating. When training for marathons, I've had precisely the same feeling at the two-hour point in a three-hour run: the feeling that I'm strong, full of running, and well within my capacities. But it takes a fair bit of controlled running to get there.

One more thing: "projected marathon pace" is a FULLY-RESTED and TAPERED pace, but the HS runner in question won't be fully rested and tapered. So the pace you're talking about--projected marathon pace--is actually closer to half-marathon effort. Which is to say, it's more than 85% of max HR. It's closer to 88-89%. It's slightly sub-threshold, or butting right up against threshold. I've found that a very useful pace in the final two or three miles of a two-hour run. But it's a clear notch up from 85% or marathon pace. It's a pace where talking is possible but not easy and where your breathing rate has dropped from 3/3 to 3/2 or even 2/2.

Here's a thread where some of this was discussed two years ago:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=6476384

The only way your daily pace comes down is with strength and speed. Speed comes from speed work, and strength comes from higher mileage. Get on the track once in a while and do 400's and 800's. Do longer runs and higher mileage if you can handle it. Taper when track season gets close.

Based on the PR multiples (ratio of 3200 to 1600, 1600 to 800 times), this individual could benefit vastly from dedicated speedwork.

Like really bro wrote:

If you ran 4:39 as a sophomore and you're going into your junior year track, a year more developed, shooting for faster times, then you need to train like it. You should be going 6:55-7:10 on a long run. Start at 7:40s and work your way down to 6:40s your last couple miles. I remember my times going waaay down my senior after ditching the slow runs and hanging around 6:50-7:10 all the time unless pretty beat up.

I feel the same about this. You're doing 7 to 10 mile runs at a 8:10 pace as a 4:40 miler? But before I get too into it I think your long runs have to coincide with the overall training during the week. For example, you might benefit more easy running a majority of your long runs if you're doing long hard tempos in the week or other various speed work in the week and don't feel fullyrecovered on your long run days.

I'll start off with some asumptions and addressing exclusively the long run. Since you're 'winter training' I'm assuming you're probably developing your base more than speed right now. Because of this assumption you should definitely be able to press without much issue on your long runs. If it were me I'd treat my long run as type workout more than just running to miles in. I'd start out at my usual 8:10 pace for the first mile or two to warm up, then I'd start progress my pace down to tempo or 10k pace for my last mile then the following week maybe something different start out slow and run the middle 5 or 6 miles at a 7/7:10 pace and easy run the remainder.

Yeah, ever since I heard about Lydiard (the beginning of 9th grade), I ran my long runs slow and without much effort, and that was at about 8 min/mile. My thought process was that all I needed to do was run the long runs slow so I could take the speed workouts faster, and if my long runs were too fast, I wouldn't be able to run as fast as I could on the repeats. Thanks to everyone who replied to this thread because I didn't know I should be going harder on long runs.

Libertarian vegan wrote:

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

Yeah I'm well under 2 minutes for 800m and sub 16 for 5k and 10 milers sub 6 pace aren't the easiest thing for me. There's no way a ~4:40 miler could handle that, let alone even manage that by itself outside of a race.

From the Vdot calculator for a 4:40 miler:

Easy run 6:44 to 7:05 pace

Marathon pace 5:53

In the winter, since I am building my aerobic base I use long runs as a easy up tempo workout. Not too hard, but just enough to give the legs a good workout.

So from my guideline, for the long run that it should be a min to two min slower than mile pr pace. My long run guideline also falls inline with the vdot calculator.

A good advice !

WinterWorkouts wrote:

Yeah, ever since I heard about Lydiard (the beginning of 9th grade), I ran my long runs slow and without much effort, and that was at about 8 min/mile. My thought process was that all I needed to do was run the long runs slow so I could take the speed workouts faster, and if my long runs were too fast, I wouldn't be able to run as fast as I could on the repeats. Thanks to everyone who replied to this thread because I didn't know I should be going harder on long runs.

Not to be confused with the idea you should press on every long run either! During your track season you're probably getting beat up with what ever workouts you're doing in addition to your races, so in that case i would definitely just treat my long runs more as a nice and easy recovery day and be ready for the next weeks demands. In off season is when I'd suggest pressing the paces (since the workouts are likely not very demanding in off season as they were in XC) especially if you're feeling good. This will prevent you from feeling too stagnant when you start doing harder workouts in season and not lose much spark in the legs.