Email and my responise:
I just wanted to comment on your latest article about college training. I agreed
with most of what was said because I feel would be in the same position as you
if not for my older brothers. You seem to share many of their ideas about
resisting the urge to hammer easy runs, not killing yourself in intervals, and
consistency in mileage. I always want to run higher mileage but listening to
their advice has always helped so I stay at 80. I just have a few questions. I
have heard high mileage is detrimental to training because it takes away from
workouts, and workouts need to be the focus of your training. How do you
determine the best mileage for training and how long did it take you to build
to your current mileage? Also, about how many miles do you run at 7 minute pace
or slower? I rejoined the team at **** this year and our coach focuses on
trying to avoid those 7 minute pace easy days. He likes to say easy doesn't
mean slow, but relaxed. It seems to have worked very well for you though, and
that makes me think I should try a few different training plans once I graduate
to see what works best (10k, half-marathon, marathon). I'm just not sure how
long I need to stick with a plan for it to take effect, or whether varying my
training dramatically will hurt my racing.
***
My response:
I don't try and run "slow". I try and run easy. But when I'm running a
lot (120 miles) a week on a lot of days 7:30 pace is my relaxed pace.
My brother coaches at Cornell and I think some of the guys have
relaxed and slow confused. They now get pissed if someone wants to go
off an run even 6:45 pace. If you're not running very much, this can
easily be a relaxed pace for someone. Some days I may run 7:30 pace
and some days I may end up finishing at a decent clip, all on easy
days just depending on how I feel. It all depends on who the person
is, what they did the day before, etc.
As for high mileage detracting from workouts I disagree. My coach was
very cautious in bumping up my mileage. But I don't think high mileage
detracts from workouts. If I'm running relaxed or easy on my easy days
I don't have a problem working out. Sure my legs may be tired but I
think people who run less mileage but hammer their easy days are more
likely to compromise their workouts. I'm at least getting some benefit
by running a lot on my easy days.
I'm not saying everyone needs to run 120 miles a week as that works
best for me, but I think almost everyone should at some point be
running 90 to 100 miles a week. Virtually every top distance runner in
the world runs this much at some point.
Hope this helps. Good luck at the meet.