Training Talk - Between Workout Days Pace

Training Advice/Discussion 5k/10k

3 years ago 01/27/2021 12:58pm EST

Basically in high school when I found this site, I learned to take my easy days easy and to keep my hard days controlled and bump the mileage way up. This has taken me from 30 mile weeks at 15/16 years old to now 100+ most weeks at 19. Now that I have had influence from college teammates and just reading more about elite training, I can't seem to logically prove faster easy days are better than slower easy days and vice versa. I feel like there's a lot of benefit to gain from taking easy days faster, but maybe you're not going to recover well? I'm not sure. Another thing I've been thinking about is if guys in the past with 57 (Salazar) 56 or 55 sec 400m speed are able to run low to mid 13s for 5k, what's stopping most people from being able to do that? I've only got 55 sec 400m speed, so nothing crazy, but how do I get to an elite level, rather than vying for sub 15 as a sophomore in college?

Basically, should your easy days be fast or slow on high mileage and how come most guys that can run 55 in the 400 aren't faster at 5k?

3 years ago 01/27/2021 1:42pm EST

re: (username here)

(username here) wrote:
Basically in high school when I found this site, I learned to take my easy days easy and to keep my hard days controlled and bump the mileage way up. This has taken me from 30 mile weeks at 15/16 years old to now 100+ most weeks at 19. Now that I have had influence from college teammates and just reading more about elite training, I can't seem to logically prove faster easy days are better than slower easy days and vice versa. I feel like there's a lot of benefit to gain from taking easy days faster, but maybe you're not going to recover well? I'm not sure. Another thing I've been thinking about is if guys in the past with 57 (Salazar) 56 or 55 sec 400m speed are able to run low to mid 13s for 5k, what's stopping most people from being able to do that? I've only got 55 sec 400m speed, so nothing crazy, but how do I get to an elite level, rather than vying for sub 15 as a sophomore in college?
Basically, should your easy days be fast or slow on high mileage and how come most guys that can run 55 in the 400 aren't faster at 5k?

Because their 400m times didn't have any basis in reality. They never ran it any any serious context and instead you are looking at like high school sophomore times or intervals at the end of a workout. A legit 55 still gets you down to 4:15 which gets you into a low 14 time.

As far as fastish easy days versus slowish ones, that is a lot harder and will depend on what you consider "hard". For a 15 min guy, easy run pace is going to be in the 6:15-7:00 range for most people on most days. Are you better off pushing to run 5:45? Probably will not recover. Is running 8+ mins better? Probably not unless it lets you get more mileage in. There is no need to push easy run pace but also no reason to go insanely slow all the time. Go look at the kenyans. Yeah they have some slow runs but it is around a a ton of hard training.

3 years ago 01/27/2021 3:21pm EST

re: adsfdasfasfsafadfa

Look. During my christmas holiday my easy pace was a bit faster than what I usually do. If I were to reproduce that same easy pace now when I am working 100 %, I would not recover as well. After a hard day at work I may have to slow down significant. If I were to run my easy days fast rather than slow I would have a burnout. In my opinion, always choose to slow down rather than bump up if in doubt.

3 years ago 01/27/2021 4:32pm EST

re: (username here)

(username here) wrote:
Basically in high school when I found this site, I learned to take my easy days easy and to keep my hard days controlled and bump the mileage way up. This has taken me from 30 mile weeks at 15/16 years old to now 100+ most weeks at 19. Now that I have had influence from college teammates and just reading more about elite training, I can't seem to logically prove faster easy days are better than slower easy days and vice versa. I feel like there's a lot of benefit to gain from taking easy days faster, but maybe you're not going to recover well? I'm not sure. Another thing I've been thinking about is if guys in the past with 57 (Salazar) 56 or 55 sec 400m speed are able to run low to mid 13s for 5k, what's stopping most people from being able to do that? I've only got 55 sec 400m speed, so nothing crazy, but how do I get to an elite level, rather than vying for sub 15 as a sophomore in college?
Basically, should your easy days be fast or slow on high mileage and how come most guys that can run 55 in the 400 aren't faster at 5k?

Salazar was indeed slow over 400, but he was 99% slow-twitch and had a tremendous VO2MAX (above 80). He was a physical anomality in both muscle fiber distribution and VO2MAX, and his pain threshold was also unbelievably high (he ran himself into the ground more than once).

Chances are, that you are just another guy with only 55s 400m speed and got absolutely no chance to get elite. Most people who get elite/pros already crush HS on very low/moderate training (and everyone knows about them), I know you think about people like Jack Foster or Steve Way who eventually got really good in marathons but these are absolute exceptions and definitely not the norm.

I'm sorry that it sounds so rude, but I think if you had the potential to be elite, you or people around you would know that already.

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