Steady state running: beneficial or waste

Nobody has ever done 10 mile runs at slightly slower than MP pace. that is a really radical idea….

Yes but I wouldn't do another hard workout the same day after your steady run, the steady run is a big workout.

Yea i figured they would best treated as a proper session with recovery days before and after.

I never liked fartleks personally so I always found steady progression runs (working from a bit faster than recovery pace to 'marathon effort') to be the first type of any hard running during the earliest parts of base training.

Something like easy-steady-easy-steady-true recovery-easy-steady long run would be a usual week for me when building up like 2-3 months out from any competition, which would usually got me into quite good shape quickly but always had to be careful not to overdo it.

Great for base phase and marathon training, outside of that not much purpose.

My college did steady state runs as a staple and I think they really shine for 3k-10k guys. A 20-30 minute tempo does the same job fitness wise but there’s something about really being in a tough spot mentally by mile 5 but soldiering on for another 5 miles that makes you show up a lot more mentally prepared on race day.

If you run high volume you recover from these well, and you can do these on somewhat tired legs too. Early season we’d do a 6-8 mile steady state after our races on friday or saturday, or make a 13-15 mile long run a 2x5 mile workout or 8-10 mile straight up effort. I also think it builds great prerequisite fitness for the shorter harder tempo runs and longer intervals you need to run well in the upper middle distances. Things like 12x400m in 68-69 or 8x3:00 @4:45 mile pace turns into a piece of cake when you can put up 10 miles at 5:30ish pace without much issue.

I think steady states were the defining factor that made me go from an 800m only guy as far as competitive performances go, to someone that could run well up to 3k and not embarrass myself collegiately 5k-8k. My HS 3200m PB was in the high 10:00 range and I busted an 8:42 3k my first year doing training like this.

Our 5k/10k types that were doing more steady state running than the MD guys also have transferred super well to the marathon. There’s 3 guys and I think 2 girls who I ran with that pulled off OTQs this year. Our faster distance athletes were going out and going as fast as 5:10-5:20 pace for up to 13-15 miles at times, and I think it set them up well to tack on an extra 20-25 mpw to hit triple digits and putting up their 20-22 mile quality long runs at 5:30-5:50 pace which id consider very high level marathon training.

CopperRunner, what college did you go to? We started doing these my last year of college and had similar results across the board.