Someone with distance running expertise please explain.

... Well, come along! I've got two spears, And I'll poke your eyeballs out at your ears; I've got besides two curling-stones, And I'll crush you to bits, body and bones.

Well honestly you have realized the importance of high mileage. You are a person of mostly slow twitch muscle fibers. Thus you are able to respond to and benefit most from high volume and low amounts of intensity. Now to say that intervals are overatred is false. For others might have a higher fast twitch muscle fiber ratio and respond better to more intensity. The key people is to know what type of person you are. If you are in doubt it is better to have a moderate amount of mileage and speed workouts.

In general there are 4 types of running that make up a good training schedule. You have base running, tempo work, long intervals and short intervals.

Your training is missing the two middle types - for a great training plan I would look at the book "Better Training For Distance Runners" by Coe & Martin. He explains all the different approaches to training and such. Great book.

I have no experience with coaching so I can only tell my own story.

I'm an old plodder with good endurance and very little speed.

On 30 april 06 I struggled thru a half in 1:41:00.doing 60-80k a week.

I added a set of hill reps and a set of intervals per week and ran 1:32:46 on 4th of june.

For me it is a case of getting it all in the right sequence.

Intervals aren't bad.

You probably need much less than most people. In your current fitness it probably only takes a couple interval sessions to maximize your aerobic power.

It's not unheard of.

The tempo and hill suggestions are correct. I would do longer intervals to prepare for a 10k. I use 400 or 800 m for 5ks, 1000 up to 1600m for longer distance races. You also don't mention, but need to evaluate the ratio of your interval (rest) to the time you take to do your distance.

I've always gotten slower when I've done serious interval work. Not everyone does, but some do.

Thanks for the advice. So if I were training for a 5k and do 400-800's intervals leading up to a peak performance, how fast and how much rest between for a 15:35 5k goal?

Am I missing something? You ran 29:46 for a 10k and now want to run a 15:35? Did you have a set back between April and now? If I didn't miss anything, seems to me you are capable of running a 5k much faster. If that is the case, then people will suggest the proper workout.

Add hill work, son. You can do it.

Here's the short-n-snappy explanation: you are a runner with a very high proportion of ST fibres compared to FT. For you to train these ST fibres does not require a very intense effort. They are recruited early, and can be trained at even moderate pace (as you have found out for yourself). More intense, interval-type training, works best on FTIIa and FT IIb fibres, and you do not have much of these. Thus, training aimed at improving those fibres does not appear to have much effect on you (personally) and leads to you wonder whether intervals are overrated.

As I hope is understood from the above, they are, but ONLY in someone with your high percentage of ST fibres. Another runner with a high proportion of FTIIa fibres would need to run intervals to recruit them (and cause them to adapt).

That's not to say that you do not need fast running in your training, but that the vast majority of your aerobic development can come from easy to moderate-pace long running.

i don't get this entire thread... this runner comes on here and sounds like he knows almost nothing about running but can pop a 29:46 in a 10k

in my humble experience anyone who runs that fast for a 10k generally knows his stuff or is lying about how fast he ran

maybe your question was just worded poorly and you really do know what you were talking about and just wanted other's opinions, i suppose that is a 3rd option

I have been using this method for over two years, and set PRs in the 5K and 10K:

http://www.coacheseducation.com/xc/jack_farrell_july_00.htm

I'm not saying that this is the way everyone should train, but it has worked wonders for me, and I really, really enjoy this type of training.

I started the thread. I am not saying I know nothing about running. I want to get into coaching and was wondering if I should just have my distance runners run mostly distance as it worked for me. The 15:35 would not be for me but for those I coach. How fast to run the reps with how much rest for a 15:35 5k???

yup, I call b.s.!

anEconomist wrote:

i don't get this entire thread... this runner comes on here and sounds like he knows almost nothing about running but can pop a 29:46 in a 10k

in my humble experience anyone who runs that fast for a 10k generally knows his stuff or is lying about how fast he ran

maybe your question was just worded poorly and you really do know what you were talking about and just wanted other's opinions, i suppose that is a 3rd option

lkj: You might wanna read this incredible thread started by Tinman

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=309865&page=0