You are right. Running really slow is worse than not running at all. I’m now going to implement 3 days on the couch instead of easy running because apparently going slow on your easy days is bad.
You are right. Running really slow is worse than not running at all. I’m now going to implement 3 days on the couch instead of easy running because apparently going slow on your easy days is bad.
Reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit. I didn’t say you shouldn’t have easy days. I said for a sub 5:00 miler running 9-10 min pace doesn’t do a whole lot. Especially when in my experience those kids do a poor job understanding effort. To many of these kids 9-10 feels almost the same as 7-8. They are not the same benefit but for that level of athlete neither are hard runs. Go take 2 sub 5min milers who trained the same to get there. 6:45-7:30/mile during the school year. Same speed. Same background. Have one run 10min pace every day. No workouts. Have the other run 7:00-8:00 pace every day. Let’s see who’s better in a year. You’re an idiot if you think after displaying they can handle 6:45-7:30 the one running 10min pace will be better than the one run I g 7-8.
Pacerracer wrote:
Case in point. I have an athlete that routinely runs 6:45-7:30 pace with his teammates and by himself will not think twice about running 9-10min pace stoping frequently (tie shoe, grab a drink, stretch, wait for a light, etc). He will come back from 9-10 min pace and say it was the same effort as 6:45-7:30 pace. He just can’t differentiate. I have found this to be a common problem with sophomores and juniors in particular. I tell him to run comfortably hard and he brings it down to 8:00-8:30 pace… which is fine. Still not where he would be if he was with people but good enough. Is it tempo pace for him? Absolutely not. Is he not recovering? Absolutely not. He just has poor perception of effort.
I fully understand and as I pointed out, I am seeing this with my own kid this summer. Today we're doing cruise intervals and I'm giving him specific times to hit. I'm curious how he perceives the effort and all the data that his watch will spit out.
When coaching in the past we had a no practice period in the summer and if I gave my team parameters and a loose schedule I never knew what paces they were actually hitting. It wasn't until our first day of practice where we'd find out who did their summer work.