Thoughts on why recreational runners don't improve and how they can

I agree. A lot of posters are interpreting the "drill" I've described as either sprint reps or strides. It is a short alactic sprint... but being alactic is secondary to the purpose(s) of the drill. The purposes are to adapt the muscles to move efficiently through a wider range of motion and for really slow (12min/mile) runners, to train the CNS to fire the muscles faster.

Another drill I do at least once a week is a cadence drill. I do 50m drills at progressively faster cadence... first at 210spm, then 220, 230, 240, 250. I don't track speed. I just follow the metronome beats for 50m.

Then, I'll do 10 seconds just jogging in place at 260, 270, and 280. For perspective, my actual 400m cadence is around 205. I think doing drills at higher than race cadence will help me sustain race cadence for longer.

I agree with your main point - too many hobby joggers slog 12+ minute miles for years hoping that they turn into 8 minute miles.

This will nearly NEVER happen unless that runner is has a crazy amount of mass, either muscle or fat or has very high T. And the reason this works is similar to the bodybuilding "cut" cycle. The big guy is retaining most of his muscle while losing fat (remember, they used to be able to "squat" 300 pounds just getting out of a chair, now they only weigh 200...do the math)

I disagree with your assumption that hobby joggers are slow due to neuromuscular ability. The most obvious examples are sprinters.

The average weight hobby joggers are slow because of a lack of speed endurance, and the refusal of most hm and marathon plans to address it. These runners cannot drop their times by huge amounts because they don't have a ton of weight to drop. They also start off with less muscle and now they're burning through that by running. High volume short intervals should be in every plan. Most people don't run well on pure slow easy miles. There's a girl who dropped a 6 hr marathon to a 3 hr with negligible weight loss and her approach is the same. Get your mile time to a respectable level, then put on the mileage.

This is a great thread.

Look at the vast majority of training plans out there for amateurs - they completely miss out raw speed and range of motion.

As a semi related anecdote - a local youngish amateur runner recently joined our club and came down the track. He'd been training for years but had never done any strides, let alone true speedwork. His running form was a mess. His target was 20 min 5k and he actually asked "how do I run a 4 minute kilometre more comfortably" and was shocked when someone said "well first you need to be able to run a 3:30 km (in order for 4 minutes to be more comfortable), but to run a 3:30 km you need to be able to run 400m in around 72, and 200m in 35. You could see his head explode - he'd never even thought of this before.

And for the B sub group who do one tempo run and one intervals session at 5k race pace as the two hard days of the week could benefit from another day of these 30m near max speed runs. The range of motion at near maximum sprint speed is greater than 5k race pace, is it not?

This is a bit off-topic, but it validates your point. In October 2022, Jim Spivey, a 1500 and 5000m Olympian, started an adult training group in our city. We'd do 200s, 400s, ladders, etc and every workout started with 8x100m of strides. We only met formally once a week. The rest of the week, we did our normal routine.

At our two year anniversary we had a party and gave awards to Most Improved, Best Comeback, Boston Qualifiers, etc. When I surveyed club members to gather this information, I discovered that 41 of our 43 members had set PRs often by quite a bit since starting the weekly interval workouts. The two who had not set PRs had suffered non-running injuries and were already outstanding runners.

Typo: In October *2002*

I like your thread because it reminded me that I should not skip strides. I don't think there's a fundamental difference to your approach, just a particularly structured way to add those accelerations to your training. Like there can be track diagonals on grass before/after track intervals, untimed strides inside a recovery jog, and there can be this. Any way you do it the idea is to run as fast as you can while staying relaxed so that your body memorises all that range of motion, muscle engagement, cadence, ground contact time and other mechanical stuff which is kind of daunting to train in isolation.

Awesome post, and so true, so true.

Things I've noticed that have caused the most injuries though are (1) bad shoes, and (2) bad chairs.

Shoes can cause injuries in many ways to list here as that would deserve it's on thread.
One of them is when the shoes are lop-sided, i.e. they don't sit flat on the floor on their own.
They can also become lop-sided when the under sides of the heels wear out more on one side.
I've found a remedy for this is grinding down the high sides so that both sides are even.

Chairs cause injuries by pressure on the upper hamstring tendons and the joints in the buttocks.

Office chairs that are lower in the centers and curve up on the sides right into the gluts are especially bad for causing such injuries, which can become long term and put the runner out of commission permanently when not addressed and resolved.

Personally I have removed the seat portions, replaced them with flat pieces of wood similar to wood chair surfaces, and sometimes added a folded up yoga mat on top, which is much more comfortable and less harmful to sit on. I was out of commission for quite a long time because of a bad chair, not knowing the cause, finally realizing what it was and am now back running again.

Fisky, thank you for starting this helpful discussion.

Tell me you're a recreational runner that can't improve without telling me you're a recreational runner that can't improve.

So what if he is? "Recreational runner" isn't an insult. If you run, and running isn't your primary source of income, guess what you are? A recreational runner!

The fact that someone doesn't or can't improve as a runner isn't an insult, either. Being a fast runner does not make one a virtuous person, and being a slow runner doesn't make one a bad person.

Placing 200th instead of 250th at the turkey trot does nothing to change the world or make you a better person.

The guy was talking about not being able to improve, not that he could not win gold medals. There is a difference, so put your strawman back in the barn.