Help me out: Great endurance, but my speed absolutely SUCKS!

Need Speed wrote:

Am I doing something wrong, or is it normal to not be 100% "sharp" when training for a marathon and putting in high mileage?

No you're not doing something wrong; it's normal.

You are a well-trained runner with low genetic VO2MAX.

Not everyone is born with a VO2MAX to genetically cruise tempos at 5:00 pace or do mile/k reps at 4:50 pace. I'm sorry to phrase it so negatively but that's the truth.

You can only run with the level of talent you were born with/given from birth. You got very far despite not having an elite VO2MAX due to smart training and dedication to the sport. You should be proud of yourself and not enter an endless swamp of desperation trying to figure out if you did some major training mistakes that make you not the 15:00 5k runner you want to be but a 17:00 guy.

Also your 3xMile/3x1k workout is enough for most people to run a ~16:00 5k with it. That's a solid workout, most 17:00 5k guys can't run a workout anywhere near that level. So don't sell yourself short unless you actually fail to reach good times in races.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

You are a well-trained runner with low genetic VO2MAX.

Not everyone is born with a VO2MAX to genetically cruise tempos at 5:00 pace or do mile/k reps at 4:50 pace. I'm sorry to phrase it so negatively but that's the truth.

You can only run with the level of talent you were born with/given from birth. You got very far despite not having an elite VO2MAX due to smart training and dedication to the sport. You should be proud of yourself and not enter an endless swamp of desperation trying to figure out if you did some major training mistakes that make you not the 15:00 5k runner you want to be but a 17:00 guy.

I hope you never coach anyone.

OP, ignore this ignorant poster.

If you are training for a marathon you obviously are not dedicating much, if any, time to developing the kind of speed you are talking about.

I don't have much time to write now but remember, if you don't train it you will lose it. Persist and do strides, short hill repeats at almost top speed, and consider having a post-marathon period of doing 800-1500m training.

6m pace for a marathon is a good deal. Consider trail events, consider the 50K.

Not to be a bummer here, but you have a gift - figure out how to best use it!

ImpaIa31 wrote:

If you are training for a marathon you obviously are not dedicating much, if any, time to developing the kind of speed you are talking about..

Yup.

Sorry, raw speed is something you’re born with. Not that you can’t improve it, but thinking you’ll someday be able to run sub 50 400 is likely not going to happen.

That said, it doesn’t mean you can’t be fast. Ran 29:00 10k and 14:10 5 but my official 400 pr was 57 in a relay and I could never really close any race with anything faster than a 65 last 400. I think at my fastest I could have gotten under 55 for all out 400 but anytime we did speed work faster than 64 I knew I was going to have a hard time.

Also high mileage can hamper speed and make you feel flat on speed days. Save the high mileage for the off season. Once you start racing it’s time to cut back and focus on running fast. Some runners can handle high mileage during the season but not a lot. Every year before cross we’d do a 10 miler at around 5:20ish and it always felt super fast. As the season progressed and I cut mileage and focused on speed endurance it just got easier.

Make sure you’re focusing your efforts on speed days. If you’re out running a 10 miler at 5:50 pace the day before hard 1000s you’re probably going to be tired. Running your off days harder than you should and you’re interval workouts slower than you want isn’t making you faster. Anytime I did an off day run during the season I was always asking myself “will this pace affect the quality of my workout tomorrow? Will it help or hinder my goals for the season?” On workout isn’t going to matter, but if it’s something you’re consistently doing it’s probably having a negative effect.

Chances are 70 pace is always going to feel fast. It did for me. But the more you do it the more you know you can handle it for extended amounts of time.

Just keep with it. Do the work and eventually you’ll start to handle the faster stuff.

Chances are that you are a little stronger/heavier than most runners and have a long torso. You probably also do a lot of leg extensions, lunges and strides. Also, I am going to guess that your cadence is below 185.

Any of that sound right?

Weightlifting can help with speed for distance runners. Also doing strides where you get to or near top speed helps. Plyos or explosive drills and stretching may help.

In my world of classy coaching even the marathon has a need for speed. It's like Einstein once stated that everything is relative....What you can try is to do shorter maxVO2 reps e.g 10-20 x 400m at 5 k race pace and then when you get stronger you can sometimes extend them to 600-800m and sometimes do mixed maxVO2 workouts with 200-300-400-600 and 800m .Then you just run another workout in the week at LT-pace to complement the 5 k paced intervals and run 800s-3000s to a total of 6-12 miles.

Do some fast strides, 150 meter build-ups, some tempos sandwiched between 4x200 at mile pace, or 3x300 at mile pace. You've got to get your body used to running faster if you want it to be able to run fast in a race. You likely run a ton of mileage and longer workouts, and don't do much at a shorter faster pace, and so when you do occasionally run something at '5k' pace, it seems fast, because you don't spend much time running that fast.

perpone wrote:

Chances are that you are a little stronger/heavier than most runners and have a long torso. You probably also do a lot of leg extensions, lunges and strides. Also, I am going to guess that your cadence is below 185.

Any of that sound right?

I am like that but an 800m runner and I have very good speed so that doesn’t mean anything

Sorry I can't offer anything on this. But I can relate. Well, there were a few times when I tried just going out balls out from the start of a race and experimenting to see just how long and far that would take me.

It was late in my running life, so I don't know whether there was meaning in it, but I improved my times dramatically, and my legs didn't fall off, as I feared.

Just wondering if in spite of our genes and workouts our little brains can carry us faster than our bodies think. (Hmmmm?)

I think your paces line up in the same ballpark. I would guess that your workout puts you in the neighborhood of 16:15 5k, and that is comparable to a 5:57-6:00 marathon pace.

Train your weaknesses! After this marathon buildup, go back and hit some 3k/5k/mile -specific training, and you'll likely see some improvements by targeting those faster paces.

do you incorporate a faster than marathon pace workout on a weekly basis? maybe that would improve your comfortability with those faster paces. also sounds like you are experiencing normal high mileage 'flatness' for lack of a better word

Some good suggestions so far

I already regularly do strides twice per week after easy runs. I try my best to feel smooth on them but they haven't seemed to improve my speed as indicated by my workouts. I think part of the problem is my cadence is on the higher end. Like on today's workout it was 195-200. Yes, it feels very choppy and it seems like I'm generating a lot of "power."

I know Daniels recommends doing economy workouts (200-400 reps at his R pace) during the early phases of a training program to get comfortable with faster running. Would these be a good idea when I train for shorter distances again?

I should also add, I wasn't even able to reach my max heart rate on the intervals today (even though it felt like I was working really hard). The highest I got was 187 (max is about 200). Aren't VO2-max intervals are supposed to be done at max heart rate or close to it? Could this have to do with not being warmed up enough? I also run early mornings, so I'm not sure if that would have to do with it too.

*Not generating a lot of power

Idk OP, those times look like they pretty much in line to me. A marathon at 6-flat means 16:20-16:30 in the 5k. That's exactly where you seem to be at.

I think we typically see people overperform at the shorter stuff and underperform at the longer stuff so maybe a 15:40 5k runner runs a 2:37 marathon when they really should be threatening 2:30 with the right training. Sometimes true distance runners feel like they have no speed because they're hitting the same marathon times as people who are faster on paper. Are those people running 100 mile weeks and cranking out all of the big threshold workouts that you've been doing? Probably not. Their talent can carry them to a sub-2:40 but they're leaving time on the table and you're hitting PBs that are even across the board.

Now maybe you're maxed out at 16:20 & 2:37 or so. Well, you're training like a marathoner. Maybe it's worth it to spend some extended time training from the 800-5k. If you run sub-16, your marathon potential increases. Maybe that's not worth it to you and you want to keep moving up in distance -- road/trail ultras, triathlons, etc. Chances are that you'll do pretty well in those arenas.

We pretty much mean the same, you just wrote it in a nicer way than I did. I agree with ultras/triathlons being a good alternative, OP has shown to be able to handle multiple 100 mile weeks with ease so his body seems to have the resilience to become good at these events.

Also, lots of people still missed what OP actually meant with "speed" - he didn't mean sprint speed, or top-end speed, but "speed" as in "3k-10k pace", coming from him as 100 mpw training marathoner. That's an important difference!