I keep seeing people on Strava calling their runs steady.
What's is steady pace? What's the benefits of steady runs?
I keep seeing people on Strava calling their runs steady.
What's is steady pace? What's the benefits of steady runs?
Running a steady pace helps your endurance as you get used to running moderately for a long period of time
Also helps you practice running at an effort for a long time which helps you mentally in longer races
steady pace wrote:
I keep seeing people on Strava calling their runs steady.
What's is steady pace? What's the benefits of steady runs?
Steady pace is a term coined by people who can't keep their easy days easy enough, so they call it "steady".
For serious runners, steady state might be a pacing workout, trying to keep it even around marathon pace, which, again, doesn't yield many physiological benefits. It's too fast to be easy and it's too slow to be a tempo.
You are that long sub threshold tempo runs yield no physiological benefit for serious runners? What is this?
For middle distance runners NONE. You can get far better value for money training around threshold... steady runs on slow days also hinder the recoveries.
Welcome to the wonderful world of overtraining....
KAV wrote:
For middle distance runners NONE. You can get far better value for money training around threshold... steady runs on slow days also hinder the recoveries.
Welcome to the wonderful world of overtraining....
Depends what you are training for, the where in the training cycle you are, and the purpose of your run.
I would agree that if all your runs are medium duration and at steady effort there is better value but there are many different approach that get different results depending on your fitness, goal or amount of training days
It’s quote misleading to uneducated to says “overtraining” and what do you more by overtraining too, we need to take your body pass it’s currently limit to breakdown and repair stronger, this is how we improve. In a state of over training too long will not allow you go recover to repair your body and you in essence become weaker.
There's no pace range on the pace continuum that is "less bang for your buck".
You don't train paces, you train muscle fibers and despite what people think, there's no distinct types of muscle fiber, it's also a continuum.
So steady state are somewhere in the middle between easy and MP in terms of fiber activation, glycogen depletion etc etc
You obviously can do less of those than easy and more than MP.
Now the art of coaching is to put those runs to those points in your schedule where they will contribute to your fitness.
One obvious example is long runs, which are often done at steady pace in marathon preparation. It helps with following transition to fast finish long runs and long runs with MP parts in them.
This seems like a really outdated perspective. Whenever I look at the training of elite 5000 runners there always seems to be a healthy dose of longer sub-threshold running during early phases.
Doesn't Lydiard specifically prescribe these runs for once a week during base phase?
I think Daniels says there's no physiological benefit, but he says to do them once in a while for marathon training (although not other distances) for the psychological benefit as well as general practice at that pace.
ouchie wrote:
Doesn't Lydiard specifically prescribe these runs for once a week during base phase?
I think Daniels says there's no physiological benefit, but he says to do them once in a while for marathon training (although not other distances) for the psychological benefit as well as general practice at that pace.
He also amended the most recent additions of his book to include... you guessed it... 10 mile runs at M pace in his 5k plan.
Welcome to the wonderful world of misuses training terminology.
In reality almost all running is done at a steady state, that being a pace faster than LTP 1 and slower than LTP 2. In other words, you’re running fast enough where some lactate leaks out of your cells but slow enough where the levels in the blood equilibrate provided you keep running at the same pace. In order to stay below “steady state” you’d need to do most of your running at a complete jog.
That being said, how far into the “steady state” continuum should you go? And how much time should you spend there?
Lydiard used the term Highest Steady State (HSS) to describe the pace that he liked his athletes to train at. Without having accurate blood lactate measurements on hand after those training sessions we kind of have to guess where his guys were at. My guess is that his guys were running their HSS runs at something similar to Mike Smith’s “Sub T” pace or Daniel’s M Pace or Tinman’s “Easy tempo” pace.
KAV wrote:
For middle distance runners NONE. You can get far better value for money training around threshold... steady runs on slow days also hinder the recoveries.
Welcome to the wonderful world of overtraining....
Check out what Salazar did to Mo Farah's easy pace. He had most of his runners go faster on easy days. I go 6:40 paces on easy days and it's not that hard after you get used to it.
If I remember correctly Mo ran at 5:50 pace at slowest during those runs.
steady pace wrote:
I keep seeing people on Strava calling their runs steady.
What's is steady pace? What's the benefits of steady runs?
It is possible to get extremely fit using only steady runs. If you're running 800m obviously you need other ingredients, but you can run extremely well at 10km and up using only paces averaging somewhere lower than half-marathon pace but still quite quick, with just a sprinkling of sharpening sessions. See Marc Nenow for example.
If you're averaging this kind of pace and have some hills, you will be working harder, and running more quickly, at times in the run.
only steady wrote:
steady pace wrote:
I keep seeing people on Strava calling their runs steady.
What's is steady pace? What's the benefits of steady runs?
It is possible to get extremely fit using only steady runs. If you're running 800m obviously you need other ingredients, but you can run extremely well at 10km and up using only paces averaging somewhere lower than half-marathon pace but still quite quick, with just a sprinkling of sharpening sessions. See Marc Nenow for example.
If you're averaging this kind of pace and have some hills, you will be working harder, and running more quickly, at times in the run.
Not sure if I agree with this. I see a ton of dudes on Strava etc. running 6:00-6:30 for literally every mile they run, putting in high volume and then running times quite slow relative to what their training would suggest. There may be some examples where people have found success doing this but they seem more the exception than the norm to me. Also, who is to say that those folks couldn't have run faster had they employed more variability in their training?
CoachB wrote:
Welcome to the wonderful world of misuses training terminology.
In reality almost all running is done at a steady state, that being a pace faster than LTP 1 and slower than LTP 2. In other words, you’re running fast enough where some lactate leaks out of your cells but slow enough where the levels in the blood equilibrate provided you keep running at the same pace. In order to stay below “steady state” you’d need to do most of your running at a complete jog.
That being said, how far into the “steady state” continuum should you go? And how much time should you spend there?
Lydiard used the term Highest Steady State (HSS) to describe the pace that he liked his athletes to train at. Without having accurate blood lactate measurements on hand after those training sessions we kind of have to guess where his guys were at. My guess is that his guys were running their HSS runs at something similar to Mike Smith’s “Sub T” pace or Daniel’s M Pace or Tinman’s “Easy tempo” pace.
Very good comment. I was just assuming the OP was referencing "steady state" as longer 6-14 mile tempo runs, run periodically at a pace below threshold but faster than normal easy days. Maybe I misinterpreted the post but that is usually what I see when people refer to "steady state" runs.
Who did? Daniels?
ouchie wrote:
Who did? Daniels?
No. Whenever I see someone refer to their pace as "steady" it is usually within the context of 8 steady, 6 steady, 10 steady etc. The pace always seems to map back to what I would describe as "what they could run a marathon in if they could convert a VDOT from a lower distance."
steady pace wrote:
I keep seeing people on Strava calling their runs steady.
What's is steady pace? What's the benefits of steady runs?
This could mean 100 different things. It could be their word for easy. Sometimes I will use steady as the word for an easy run if I am worried about them going too easy. It could mean consistent like they ran every mile similar or any of the definitions that people have listed above.
highhoppingworm wrote:
ouchie wrote:
Who did? Daniels?
No. Whenever I see someone refer to their pace as "steady" it is usually within the context of 8 steady, 6 steady, 10 steady etc. The pace always seems to map back to what I would describe as "what they could run a marathon in if they could convert a VDOT from a lower distance."
Lol. That's what I do. It works out to 5-10 bpm lower than tempo. I think I do these like once a month (partly for breaking things up during base, and partly just for petty Strava flex).
Also, I forgot to click "quote post" earlier. I was asking if Daniels was the one who amended his most recent version to include M pace during 5k training. So I just did the smart thing and pulled my copy, and it looks like he has them as part of the long run once every 2-3 weeks for the 5k/10k plans.