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

Yeah, rep work @ mile pace will build power and a longer stride. Got to get out of the marathon shuffle. ;)

Need Speed wrote: ... I would think that I could come close to 16:00 flat for a 5K, but when I do a 5K-paced workout, I'm barely scraping by at 16:20-16:30 pace. For example, today's workout I did 3 x mile, and 3 x 1000 with 2:00-2:30 rest in between, and hit 5:15, 5:13, 5:16, 3:16, 3:18, 3:17 and it just felt like I could not go any faster....

I’m not sure what the issue is. That workout would indicate sub 16 to me. I’ve just ran a bit under 16 and that would be a very hard workout for me and my “raw speed” is good. Longer tempos you mentioned are in line as well. Why do you think running 5 miles worth of running at 5k pace would feel easy?

You’re also running 100mpw, the legs aren’t going to always feel fresh. Like others have said, cutting down to 70 and doing a cycle of 5k training at some point will help you get used to running at faster paces.

Absolutely.

Be careful about using heart rate. If you're getting the data from a wrist sensor, they are much less reliable than a chest strap.

You assume I didn't do serious training. I did, a variety of programs involving fartleck, long runs, track reps, hundreds of races, road and track., and hill sprints. 80+ mis per week for two decades.

*I should have said that I would recommend the"balls out" experiment only to runners with plenty of base training, proven strength at various distances, and race savvy from long experience.*

What I personally learned was to have a bit more confidence in my ability to handle greater intensity...and higher goals!

No harm in trying new things, when you have the basics in place.

Yep, I can relate to most of this, you are a bit quicker than me, but not by much. I run near 100 mile weeks, but just feel I am hopeless at the fast stuff.

The other day I tried doing 400's (200) at a shade over 5k effort and could only manage 8, HR no where near max but felt so uncomfortable etc... Like you I have a very high cadence, I race 5/10k at 200 spm, a marathon at 190 etc...

I don't have much to add to help, but I hear you...

I’m gonna hit you with the different side of things.

I have pretty good natural speed. Even in elementary school I was just a hair slower than a kid who went to a P5 as a wide receiver.

By the end of high school I probably run a 53 or so. (I’ll refer to high school because I don’t compete anymore)

What I’ve noticed is that “high mileage” just zapped me. I’m not really a fast twitch guy, I could run 50-60 mpw in high school and feel good, but once my daily runs slowed down to a certain point I felt like I was getting slower, even if my workouts were staying consistent.

Inversely at the end of a cross country season I remember running a regular distance run at a decent clip faster than what I had ran before and felt like after that run I could run faster day to day.

I’d second some other guys here and say drop your mileage for a week or two and get some real quality work in.

Basically what we’re looking at is inefficiency at paces close to vVO2 max and faster.

You need to build something in your training that mirrors what a miler would do.

Some 5k paced work, and also some hill sprints. Once you get a couple weeks of this in, narrow in the paces to 800-1500 pace. 400 and under is good for any of this stuff. You can stick it on the end of a tempo run, or even do a shorter tempo run in the morning and the faster stuff in the afternoon.

If you don’t already, race some 5k and 10ks in your marathon buildup. Use it or lose it.

Need Speed wrote:

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.

It depends on the intervals and recoveries. With long recoveries, the intervals need to be 3-4 minutes long to be sure of getting near your max; the other way is lots of short reps with VERY short recovery. But the fact your heart only got to 93% of its max doesn't mean anything, because that's not necessarily the "rate limiting factor" on how fast you can run. It's plenty high enough to indicate you are getting a good workout. If you repeat the workout a couple of weeks later and it's getting faster, it's working.

You might want to try swapping in a "lots of short reps" session like Kenyan Diagonals (stride corner to corner on a football field, wak/jog the baseline, repeat) or finding a 20-second hill and doing reps starting "on the minute". Build up each week: 10 reps, 15, 20, 25 etc. You'll end up with a session that's like a tempo run for heart and lungs - not too hard to recover from - but you'll be practising faster running all the time and developing your biomechanics. It will lay a good "speed base" for doing middle distance repetitions in spring.

Specificity. Train at the pace you want to improve

Variety. Train faster than and slower than the above pace.

OP here

So I'm gonna go with the idea that my legs are just flat from the higher mileage as the reason why I couldn't go very fast on Wednesday's workout. But now I'm even more concerned based on what happened on Yesterday's run...

Yesterday I had a long run workout planned of 2mi w/u, 4mi threshold, 10mi easy, 4mi threshold, 2mi c/d and I absolutely bombed. My threshold pace is 5:40-5:45. I hit the first tempo mile in 5:46 and just slowed down terribly from there going 5:53-6:08-6:26 for the next three. I didn't even red-line or anything and by the time I was slowing down it didn't even feel like I was working hard. My legs just could not hold the pace at all. I decided to bag the workout and to just put in easy mileage, so I jogged out the rest at about 7:20 pace to get to 20 miles. I didn't have any trouble finishing out the run at an easy pace, I just for whatever reason could not do any faster running on this day. This coming week is a cut-back for me and I definitely need it. I am just really concerned with the fact that I couldn't hold even hold my tempo pace for 2 miles before my legs just started dropping off pace badly. To those who have trained for marathons, is it normal to fail a tempo that much? I breezed through 14 miles at sub-6 pace just a week ago but yesterday could barely hold 5:45 for not even 2 miles? WTH happened!? I'm hoping this is just part of the marathon training process to fail a workout so miserably and get back on track after taking a down week.

This is easy to solve. There are 3 main ways that cause a runner to slow down physiologically:

1) Too much blood PH and acidosis in the blood stream (correlates strongly with lactate build-up). This you will feel when you start vomiting and feel very acid/reflux.

2) Running at maximum HR. Humans can only run a short time at max HR, a few minutes at most. If you run very near or at max HR, your brain will eventually send you signals to slow down - common are dizziness, loss of vision/seeing black, general pain throughout the whole body, heart starts hurting, loss of control, and passing out as one of the last mechanism (our brains are very intelligent, it makes sure to let you pass out before you actually run yourself to death).

3) Weak legs/muscular issues.

It's not 1) because you would have noticed that. It's not 2), because you couldn't exceed 187 HR in your interval session with your known max of 200. Also you know when you are running at your max HR/limit because of the signals I mentioned above. Your problem is simply lack of leg strength - it's your weak legs that are holding you back.

Marathon training just made everything even worse, these long, slow miles sap the speed and power out of your legs. The body adjusts to the stimulus you give him.

What you need to do ASAP - strides every day, at high velocities. Hill sprints at least once a week, twice. And don't turn them into another aerobic workout, like a hilly long run (which would be another good thing to do btw) or long reps of 1-5 min uphill. Do 10-25s reps with a lot of power. Shorter ones with 10s duration work more on power and longer 20-25s ones more on your strength.

Also do very hard intervals but with plenty of rests - 200s, 300s, with equal distance jog/walk for example. Daniel's R reps would be great for that.

Do that for 2-3 months and you will become significantly stronger in your legs. Too many people neglect the speed/power stuff that's crucial for so-called "SPECIFIC LEG STRENGTH" to running.

Eh. I don’t really agree with this.

If you want to build leg strength get in the gym. A bunch of sprinting is going to get you injured if you aren’t used to it.

Like most people are saying, lower mileage.

Depending on how your day life is, try to get in more doubles if you don’t already.

Maybe switch to a longer cycle, 10-14 days instead of one week