Can you get faster by just doing “easy”mileage (no speed)

keepgoing wrote:

You're being pretty unnecessarily combative on this thread. The dude said various paced runs would come up when he was "feeling good and running the last few miles or so sub 6." For a really good runner, that can still be easy. The days when you're floating along, and just cruising, actually feel easy.

Also, strides are easy. If you do them right. Yes it is faster than slow, plodding running, but if you do 8 of them with plenty of rest and just practice running fast, guess what? It's easy!

So what other workouts can I do? Daniels rep workouts feel easy so they are ok. Tempo runs feel on medium also so they are ok also. Short hills also feel pretty easy.

So know my week of easy running is

Monday 30 min tempo

Tuesday 8x400

Wednesday easy

Thursday 30 min tempo

Friday 10x10s hills

Saturday/sun easy

Does that really match what you think of when someone says 100% easy running? Or is 100% easy meaningless when you can do whatever you want as long as you say it was easy?

And if I am only doing zone 1 running but am dragging at the end of my 20 miler, am I no longer doing easy running?

Nobody debates that a high volume of easy running is the key for good endurance gains. But the idea that you can just skip doing the rest is sketchy at best. I am unaware of any programs that do 100% easy for more than a few weeks at the start. A lot don't do a lot of quality but just because it is low volume, doesn't mean that the quality isn't important.

ddidididid wrote:

i do r pace stuff wrote:

I agree with this. My best college xc season came after a summer of mileage & strides 2x a week. Didn't mess with any workouts at all (tempos, fartleks, whatever). Just tons of doubles, long runs, etc. However, this running wasn't all "easy". A lot of medium effort runs in there depending on how I felt on the day. Tons of like....feeling good and running the last few miles or so sub 6. Stuff like that. I think that stuff can transform you as a runner before any of the real workouts even begin.

So basically you don't agree with it at all. You did speed work 2x/week and did some faster aerobic work on top of it. The fact that you didn't call them real workouts doesn't change what the were.

Lol.

So everyone what should my tempo pace be to stay within that aerobic area? around marathon pace or is that too slow? half marathon pace?

If you were a high school runner and ran an easy 40-50mpw every week between the State T&F meet and the first day of XC practice, you would be in very good shape for the upcoming season. Say you did this between your Soph and Junior summer break you would probably have a very successful XC season. Why? Mainly because most high school kids don't put in that kind of mileage on a consistent basis. You would also become strong from this and would have less chance of injury when the XC season arrives and the intensity of workouts begins.

Sorry, didn’t see this until now. What I do as a middle distance runner (so adjust accordingly) is 16x400m @ 5k-3k pace, so I’ll start at 1:15s and move down to 1:12s. I’ll usually do something like a 100m walk to the next starting point to switch it up a bit each rep. Typically you want about a minute of rest.

A 10k and up guy may want to do something more like 20-24 of them at 5k-10k pace.

I think the general idea is that you’ll get the same aerobic gains as a tempo run while building the mechanics to run faster.

My highschool senior year I cut out my tempo runs and replaced them with CV training for my footlocker training and PRd in my 5k by almost a minute, so I can personally testify it works great!

At the end of the day, easy is a feeling. Are your easy days easy? Are your faster days easy? If you are running well within yourself on any given day, in my opinion, you are running easy.

So could that schedule you wrote out be easy? Yes, in theory. But the whole idea of this kind of training is that you don't schedule it. I was actually thinking I would do a long run today, but my body wasn't feeling it. I ran slow enough, and short enough, to keep it easy. Probably some time in the next few days I'll feel up for getting a 2 hour run in that I can do in a manner that feels easy and productive. So no,to answer your question, dragging yourself through a 20 miler is not always easy running.

I'm not here to say that this philosophy of training is better than yours. And I'm actually not all that interested in a semantics argument, either. In my previous post I was just pointing out that you appear to be willfully misunderstanding this whole concept. Which is also fine. You do you. I enjoy reading the threads about people who run balls to the wall near daily. I find it fascinating. I can't do it/don't enjoy it. But I still like reading and learning about it. I would assume that is why you are in threads like this, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

This is great news to me; I don't have natural speed but I have very good endurance, and I also WFH. This allows me to go out and nail 7-8 miles EZ between 60-70 mins. a day consistently, no injuries and with no stress. I can do the LR on Saturdays as well, and I also use Sun. and Fri. (before and after the long run) as 3-4 mile recovery runs. I throw in a tempo run on Wednesdays.

So:

Sun--3-4 EZ (breathing thru nose)

Mon--7-8 EZ or somewhat moderate, depending on mood

Tues--7-8 EZ

Wed--7 at tempo speed, faster than Monday

Thurs--6-7 EZ

Fri--3-4 EZ

Sat--10-14 LR right now, all EZ or a few miles faster-paced, depending on mood

ddidididid wrote:

So what other workouts can I do? Daniels rep workouts feel easy so they are ok. Tempo runs feel on medium also so they are ok also. Short hills also feel pretty easy.

So know my week of easy running is

Monday 30 min tempo

Tuesday 8x400

Wednesday easy

Thursday 30 min tempo

Friday 10x10s hills

Saturday/sun easy

Does that really match what you think of when someone says 100% easy running? Or is 100% easy meaningless when you can do whatever you want as long as you say it was easy?

And if I am only doing zone 1 running but am dragging at the end of my 20 miler, am I no longer doing easy running?

The 8 x 400 (and intervals in general) can be easy if you're disciplined about pace and recovery. For example, 8 x 400 in 74s with 200 slow jog recovery is easy for a 15m 5k runner. The same in 66s with a 200 float in 40s would be a hard session.

Another giver of +1 wrote:

The 8 x 400 (and intervals in general) can be easy if you're disciplined about pace and recovery. For example, 8 x 400 in 74s with 200 slow jog recovery is easy for a 15m 5k runner. The same in 66s with a 200 float in 40s would be a hard session.

Sure and 6*800 at 5k pace can be referred to as easy if you are comparing it to 4*1 mile. 10 miles at MP is easy compared to doing 18. Personally though I would not call either of them doing easy mileage though.

Now using this new definition of easy mileage, I doubt anyone can do 100% easy mileage. I know when running 70+mpw, every couple weeks there would be that one day when I felt like trash despite running slow with a low HR. That wouldn't count as easy mileage now that we are training by feel. Heck 99% of my morning runs would count as hard because I feel like crap at 8am😋

If you've only ever run <50mi weeks with workouts, and your 5k is around 18:00+, I suspect running a 4000mi year with regular drills and strides and no workouts would result in significant improvement. Is it the only way to improve your 5k time? Of course not, and it's probably not going to work for a 16:00 5k runner.

hottytoddy99 wrote:

So everyone what should my tempo pace be to stay within that aerobic area? around marathon pace or is that too slow? half marathon pace?

Since everyones definition of aerobic area differs, its hard to say. Some will say 99% of these events are aerobic, however you burn mostly carbs when you reach above 80% of max hr, which you will during both maraton and hm.

Run6556 wrote:

hottytoddy99 wrote:

So everyone what should my tempo pace be to stay within that aerobic area? around marathon pace or is that too slow? half marathon pace?

Since everyones definition of aerobic area differs, its hard to say. Some will say 99% of these events are aerobic, however you burn mostly carbs when you reach above 80% of max hr, which you will during both maraton and hm.

Definition of aerobic threshold differs* I meant to stay.

twilight zone veteran wrote:

MatthewXCountry wrote:

Yikes, at 2 races per week, you can only do easy days in-between. Good on your coach for not doing workouts over summer, you'd be burned out by the end of the season. Your races were your workouts.

2 xc races a week was the standard in the 90s. I ran 5 races in 14 days two separate times my senior year and never went more than 10 days without racing from mid August to November. I didn't finish the season well but others did just fine on similar schedules.

we still do 2 races per week (probably 5 or 6x per season) where i come from. luckily, for the really good kids, the dual meets are nothing but a tempo. but everybody else has 2 really tough days. we don't do any workouts outside of the meets, though we get some short sprints in there on a thursday.

MAGIC WORKOUT!

Ah, I think I was reading this thread wrong. I thought this was all in the lens of base building before the season starts.

Like what everyone else is saying, at some point you are going to see greater gains by including workouts/races into your schedule. 12 weeks of "structured" workouts seems to be about right. What I was advocating earlier is ditching the structured stuff during base building in favor of picking up the pace on the day if you are feeling good ("run to the barn").

i do r pace stuff wrote:

. What I was advocating earlier is ditching the structured stuff during base building in favor of picking up the pace on the day if you are feeling good ("run to the barn").

Your body doesn't care what name you give a workout. It cares if you do the work or not.

It is hilarious to see how everyone is trying to justify doing harder work and calling it easy. Why not just accept you are running easy 95% of the time and harder that other 5? What is the obsession with getting to 100%?

Calm down, lol. I'm just giving my 2 cents. I agree, it's not 100% easy running.

I know someone who set a minute PR off 'easy' runs. But he ran higher mileage with consistent steady effort runs when he felt good. Training was like SoM (emphasis on higher mileage and easier tempos) but his fastest run would be like 5:10 pace to close out a long run. Ended up running low 14s. Mileage is so important