Unpopular opinion for hobby joggers

Me at 50% > you at 100%.

I pretty much agree with that. It's why all the lifting threads drive me crazy, people see the best in the world doing X in the gym and immediately want to do that when they are no where near maximizing their time actually running.

Yeah people like to over think training. Most people would improve if they just kept their training super simple. Easy mileage, once or twice a week do a threshold workout and strides. Throw in some race specific sessions as you get closer to your race. I think where this over thinking comes from is people trying to find the secret formula, when there isn't one other than consistent mileage.

Sounds about right.

I always laugh when I hear that a 4 hour Marathon person has a coach.

No, you are wrong. That’s it.

At what point do you stop just running easy? I assume you run easy just twice per week and crack 13 mins for a 5km so then you start training because you are a real runner?

I assume you went to college, ran on the college team, and has a coach to tell you want to do?

just imagine if you didn’t, would you have any idea what to do?

all good when someone knows what to do but I bet you don’t know just Astrophysics, maybe if you just do math more you will be ready ….

You’re of course, correct, but a lot of amateurs wanna pretend that they’re professionals so they engage in this silliness. Most of the people I know who ran Boston yesterday are good runners yet 80% of them fell apart late. The reason is that they’re not able or willing to do professional level training and get to their potential.

But, no one can tell, from just running easy, when they are that close to their biological ceiling. Some experimentation is required.

This is pretty much what I do. I do one tough progression run per week where my last 4 miles go from marathon pace to 10-15K pace. I also do one long run.

The other 3 runs are pretty easy, not influencer 12 minute pace easy, but MP+1 minute type pace.

There are these events called races.

Most people here don’t run in them. But if you do, through trial and error, you’ll eventually see what you are as a distance runner.

Although I agree in principle, the difference is hobby joggers have limited time for hobby jjogging and building mileage. This explains the relative success of the 'norwegian singles approach thread.

My main takeaway as a hobby jogger is that there is no point in peaking for a race when I should just keep building the base and staying as consistent as my life/time budget allows, which i credit to that. I've also noticed the more I run the less I care about how I structure training, think about details.

O really Mr. Henry holier than thou. And what's your best time ?

Never look down on someone for trying.

Nah. I can be way more competitive in the 5k with 20 miles a week with a couple workouts than just running 40 miles easy.

I know a guy that runs +100 miles a week all easy for ultras. He is ridiculously slow at 5k.

I took it seriously for nearly half a century and 100,000 miles, raced all over the world, finished 212th out of 5000, put on free races for kids in my community, was a volunteer high school coach for 7 years, got 4 kids free rides to collage 1 division 2 All-American, was RD of many, many races, club president,collected out of print running biographies, took the “ hobby” ( a bs term) more seriously than life itself and as many others could do, would compare running resumes with the pro runner anytime.

Jog for 7 hours a week.

Hammer the hills.

That will get you to 99%

You misunderstand what it means to pursue a hobby. That it’s a hobby means that it is optional to take it seriously. But it’s fun/interesting/fulfilling/distracting to pursue and rewarding to improve. I enjoy planning my training even though I am in no danger of troubling the podium, and couldn’t give two hoots that some people might feel precious about that. 😀

Someone once asked Shorter why he hadn't written a training book and he said if he did it would only be about two pages long. Eventually I believe he did end up writing one that was much longer. Ron Hill once wrote short article about trianing and essentially said, "Do a lot of easy running and mix in a bit of faster stuff a couple times a week." Kenny Moore once wrote that "all training is simply a matter of creating breakdown and recovering." A friend of mine who once was third at Boston told me that running is the ultimate in simple sports but people insist on making it complicated.

Yes, all of these guys are now either geezers or corpses and training theory has become more, uh, "sophisticated" and maybe for people with realistic possibilities of making national teams or winning major competitions that sophistication can make the difference between third and fourth place in a trials race. But for at least 99% of the people who show up at a road race, that's overkill and I think even a bit pretentious. Most of today's runners just don't run enough to get to their full potential. They'll get better results if they listen to Ron Hill but they won't sound as cool when they're discussing their training with others.

And that's fine. Doubling the amount of time you spend running in a week to get your 5k from 17:00 to 15:59 or your marathon to 2:55 from 3:10 may not be worth doing for lots of people. But thinking about tempo runs, double threshold sessions and how to adapt them to lower mileage, short hill sprints versus longer hill reps, etc., when you're running 40 miles a week is like buying the furniture before you'e done building the house.

Disagree. This is a gatekeeping attitude, where you're basically saying, "You're not fast enough to take it seriously, so just go jog for a while. Only us fast people can have a training plan and do workouts."

People get bored doing the same thing all the time (conversation pace). People stay focused on a goal with a training plan. How are you ever going to explore your limits without trying new things (e.g., structured workouts and hard paces)?

Unless you're within a minute of the world record (5k/10k), how are you going to know when you are close enough to your "biological potential" to start training seriously?

i personally think your HS noob who comes out first time to run should do TF first and try and find a way up the distances. the usual advice is do XC but for a noob XC is brutal mileage even for someone already playing running sports. the normal progression we all did in PE was like race 50 yards. then run a half mile around some distant tree. then run a mile. they don't have junior club TF kids age 10 running 5000m or 10000m. like you say, it builds up. the best prepared distance kids did that long progression. they didn't just come out and, oh, i want to race 3.1 miles. when they haven't done so much as a 100m sprint competitively.

this is what JV was made for.

same thing for adults.

i think this gets at not just the "stick to it" washout issue, but also folks stuck in low gear only able to run an ok pace. if you start with 100, up to half mile, mile, and so on, you have to tap that inner athlete best you can. if you skip right to distance running, you learn plodding along is what running is. you then have a mental hangup in trying to do speed work in the right way where you can push the pace more.