Daniels' Training Paces are too Hard

Sounds like you didn't race as fast as you think

They generally work for me as long as I accurately choose my VDOT level. That said, hitting a target easy pace isn't terribly important for reasons that should be obvious.

I find that E pace works for standard filler runs but is too fast when recovering from workouts.

I/R pace are a bit slow for me.

T is on the dot but tough.

M is clearly too fast for me. I can only do M workouts when in peak shape.

HHW,

I think that is because your race performances are from time trials. I think you would run faster in a race environment.

I think the reason I can't come close to replicating Daniels' paces is because my workout conditions (altitude, dirt, trainers, solo) are so far removed from optimal (Bouncy track, 4oz spikes or Next%, a hot field to drag me through the race).

For me, Daniels easy pace is too fast for most easy runs but if I'm on a flat trail or road it's about right. Interval and repetition were good but it was never too difficult to go a bit faster, but that's the idea of workouts. His threshold pace was a little quick, I could do it when I was fresh but if I had anything in my legs it got really tough really quick.

Seppo Kaitenenn is too soft.

my experience wrote:

For me, Daniels easy pace is too fast for most easy runs but if I'm on a flat trail or road it's about right. Interval and repetition were good but it was never too difficult to go a bit faster, but that's the idea of workouts. His threshold pace was a little quick, I could do it when I was fresh but if I had anything in my legs it got really tough really quick.

Because your running economy on low end is worse then average Daniels athletes. I saw vice versa, when T-pace, M-pace is too slow for people as they have better running economy on high end. Running economy is not constant from easy pace to hard pace.

Canefis wrote:

my experience wrote:

For me, Daniels easy pace is too fast for most easy runs but if I'm on a flat trail or road it's about right. Interval and repetition were good but it was never too difficult to go a bit faster, but that's the idea of workouts. His threshold pace was a little quick, I could do it when I was fresh but if I had anything in my legs it got really tough really quick.

Because your running economy on low end is worse then average Daniels athletes. I saw vice versa, when T-pace, M-pace is too slow for people as they have better running economy on high end. Running economy is not constant from easy pace to hard pace.

What if a person was to use 2 vdots for different workouts? Use a mile TT for R and I workouts, and then use a 10k-HM for T and M and E workouts?

Also, I sucked at the T and M type workouts and thought I was just a middle distance guy... until I ran more miles... and then they fit well?

Just some thoughts.

just maybe wrote:

Canefis wrote:

Because your running economy on low end is worse then average Daniels athletes. I saw vice versa, when T-pace, M-pace is too slow for people as they have better running economy on high end. Running economy is not constant from easy pace to hard pace.

What if a person was to use 2 vdots for different workouts? Use a mile TT for R and I workouts, and then use a 10k-HM for T and M and E workouts?

Also, I sucked at the T and M type workouts and thought I was just a middle distance guy... until I ran more miles... and then they fit well?

Just some thoughts.

It is a good idea to use different VDOTs for different workout paces. If you have a guy with a good mile time but a lackluster 5k/10k who is training for a half marathon (like myself), you should use the VDOT that corresponds to the 5k/10k because it is closer to the goal race pace.

I found them to be good overall for the most part. The easy day runs were closer when I was doing more speedwork and my paces were faster (Vo2 max was higher, in better shape), than when I was taking an easy block. But he gives 20 seconds slower for recovery too. If you are upping the mileage they will be a little slower too- at least for me.

Yeah, you should use the closest race or TT to your goal race distance in order to get the paces. I mean every runner knows if they are a speed guy or a distance guy. Basic rule is to work on the endurance side if you are a speed guy, speed if a distance guy, but stay in touch with your strength.

Are there any significant differences between the revisions of the Daniels' running formula book? Aside from the cover, text fixes... TIA!

Seppo, you should view the calculated paces as a guideline. He gives subjective tests that are a better guide to what the right pace should be than the tables could be. I noted comments about altitude and terrain - of course paces will be harder in those conditions. Daniels would say that you should comfortably be at conversational pace on easy runs and that this measure is more important than whether your GPS matches up with the tables.

just maybe wrote:

Canefis wrote:

Because your running economy on low end is worse then average Daniels athletes. I saw vice versa, when T-pace, M-pace is too slow for people as they have better running economy on high end. Running economy is not constant from easy pace to hard pace.

What if a person was to use 2 vdots for different workouts? Use a mile TT for R and I workouts, and then use a 10k-HM for T and M and E workouts?

Also, I sucked at the T and M type workouts and thought I was just a middle distance guy... until I ran more miles... and then they fit well?

Just some thoughts.

That's a so-called hybrid calculator in McMillan's system and he recommends it for people who are significantly better at one end the spectrum than the other.

Smoove, I agree that he would advise running a pace on easy days that is conversational, not pushing just to hit 10s/mile faster based on his chart. However, my easy days are 1:00 to 2:00/mile slower than he recommends. I think if he were to start coaching me, he would want me to speed up. But I have to go this slow to keep my heart rate in check. My workouts have never come close to what he recommends. I can only do 6-8 repeat 400s at 2s/lap slower than I end up racing the mile. My tempos are woeful (20-30s/mile slower) based on his guidelines. I pace feels like a race.

There was a training block I tried to chase everything, pace-wise. I ran what I thought were great workouts but when I went to do some time trials, I ran worse than I had when I when I was conservative in workouts. I just don't think you can chart out people's fitness linearly. The VDOT table is a good starting guideline, but trying to follow the paces for me causes overtraining.

I used vdot tables when I first started running from age 27 to 33 from 26 minute 5K doing 5:40/km easy pace and to 15:45 5K doing 4:10/km easy pace. I never had a heart rate monitor but his easy pace was so accurate that I knew what my 5K time would be just based on my easy pace. When I was 16:50 shape I just ran easy days from 4:20/km to 4:15/km and when that got truly easy I just ran 16:20. I was doing 90-100 mile a week with 5 weeks of 120 in 6 days and even a couple crazy 140 mile weeks at 4:15/km. I started running age 27 mostly barefoot to age 28 and still practiced barefoot 10 miles a week on asphalt every week so my economy was really good.

His intervals always felt a bit slow but I only ever did/do 1km intervals and 400m R pace which always felt too slow so I just ran faster. Never tried M pace as never raced over 5K. His T pace was pretty tough though.

Seppo Kaitenenn wrote:

The VDOT table is a good starting guideline . . .

This is the key right here. A few snippets from Daniels, as I recall them, without reviewing his book:

R pace should be at mile race effort. The real cue here is to make sure that your form is not breaking down. If your form starts to break down, then you are defeating the purpose of the workout, which is to streamline your form in an effort to achieve efficiency gains.

I pace should be at 5k effort. This is probably the trickiest of the paces to judge subjectively. You simply have to do your best here, but the first minute or so of each interval should be manageable, and then after that you will be up near your max heart rate (especially if you took active rest) and will really be holding on , particularly as you progress through the workout.

T pace workout are pretty challenging for me to do, but the cues on what the pace should feel like are pretty easy to understand. You should be able to answer a question with a sentence during the tempo effort, but not be able to comfortably maintain a conversation. I use the "Pledge of Allegiance" test when I am doing T workouts - I make sure I am running easy enough to get each clause out in one shot, but hard enough that I cannot get more than that. You can also check on pace via breathing rhythms. This is subtle, but when you get enough experience with it, it is effective. Basically, your breathing rhythm should be different from an easy run (when you don't even think about it), but not as extreme as during a 5k effort.

M pace workouts are nearly impossible for me, just like for HHW. I basically need to treat them as time trials or find half marathon races to use to get myself in the right mindset. Fortunately, these are not overly important in the Daniels worldview.

E pace means you should be able to talk.

If Daniels were to coach you directly and in person, I think he would be more focused on those subjective tests (or on heart rate if you wear a monitor) than he would on the paces from the tables.

The paces from the tables are both a great blessing (since they give us a good starting point for our grand training experiment) and a great curse (since they are so well known that people focus on them almost exclusively, often to their detriment).

Of course, I am a well know Daniels apologist having used his training principles on and off since 1990.

Great thoughts Smoove, thanks for sharing

Others (including Smoove) are way faster than I am as a preface. I generally also agree with Smooves statements above with one exception.

I am in the middle of a Daniels based 5k cycle and the single biggest change I have made is folding in sustained efforts at Daniels M pace per my 5k derived VDOT. Now, to be clear, I am not capable of running a marathon at this pace but I have found it hugely beneficial to build up to the M paced efforts in the Daniels plan. This plan called for 10M basically every other week as part of a long run and it took me awhile to build up to it (via 4x2M, 3x3M, 2x4M etc.) but towards the end of this cycle I did it at what felt like a real M effort. This has left me feeling way stronger than in previous cycles. Not sure how this will translate to the 5K (will find out tomorrow) but did want to share my experience with M pace folded into a training plan for a shorter race.

What is interesting about that HHW is that for people running at about your fitness level, long sustained M efforts actually turn out to be stretched out tempo efforts from a physiological point of view.

The build up of waste products occur on a continuum - there is not single inflection point where you flip over from clearing those products to them building up. They build up at on a curved line and they clear at a consistent rate. Once you get past the point where the rate of accumulation exceeds the rate at which you clear, you start getting the benefits of a threshold workout. T pace is designed to achieve maximum efficiency in 20 minute tempo runs. This means you are accumulating waste products significantly more quickly than you can clear them.

But if you were to run at a pace at which those waste products accumulate only slightly faster than you can clear them, but then draw out the duration of that run, you would still achieve a significant accumulation of waste products by the end of the run, thus achieving adaptation in line with what you would achieve with a 20 minute tempo run.

In the second edition of his book, Daniels has a table that helps calculate the appropriate T pace for runs of different durations. While the math doesn't work out this way for all runners, for some fitter runners, the pace for a one hour T run pretty much merges with M pace. So what you are really doing is getting a great tempo workout at a less intense pace but for a longer bout of work. The benefits you are seeing are likely from the LT adaptation - that is, the benefit is not from the fact that you are at M pace, but rather that at your fitness level M pace equates to your extended T pace for workouts of that duration.

Incidentally, my experience as a runner and coach is that the faster you are, the more challenging M paced workouts are because the delta between M and T pace gets proportionately smaller and smaller as you get faster and faster.