Tempo pace at the end of runs, how much?

Lenny Leonard wrote:

Again, I'll probably use these runs like every 3-4 days during my building up period, but once the season starts I would like to keep at least one run a week with this kind of stuff as well.

Don't worry so much about what your easy pace will be in a few months. Worry about what your race pace will be. Run the workouts at the prescribed effort level, and run the easy days easy, whatever pace that happens to be. If you really can tempo at 5:10-5:15, then 6:20's probably won't be that tough for you some days, but if you need to go slower don't get locked into running 6:20's.

As for the 'progression' run. I would say anywhere from 2-5 miles at tempo pace would be alright. If you're already running three other workouts during the week I would definitely err on the side of caution and keep the progression run very under control. I would suggest just dropping it down to tempo pace the last 2 miles and see how that goes. You need to be recovering enough to complete your other workouts. As for how to get to that pace, just go with whatever feels 'natural' to you, whether it be gradually increasing over a mile or so, or just 'taking off.'

that is an interesting approach to trainingi'd like that to be my easy pace...well i would like that to be my easy pace too, unfortunately my easy pace is 7:30/mileif i went out and hammered at 6:20/mile pace just because that is what I wanted my easy pace to be, it would be a disaster - i would break down very, very fastyour easy pace, and for that matter all of your other paces should be dictated by your current level of fitness/feelit is not what you want them to be

Lenny Leonard wrote:

week and I'm familiarizing myself with 6:20/mile pace as I'd like that to be my "easy pace."

Believe me, I think its interesting too. Lately I've just been thinking about when I first started running (as a freshman in high school), I started at an "easy" feel, running about 20 minutes a day. From then I gradually increased my mileage, but once the pace of these runs got to a certain point, I've just been running all of my easy days at roughly the same pace for 4 years or so. It will come as no surprise that my race performances have been stagnant as well. I did not just arbitrarily pick 6:20 as the pace, I just started running on a track at an easy effort and found I was hitting straight 1:35s for my quarters. My plan is to treat my body as if I am a new runner, except instead of the 8:00/mile pace I was running when I was 14, the pace will be faster. The effort is the same, I have just progressed as a runner.

I don't think it's that absurd though, it will most likely be two months before I'm running 50 minutes daily at that pace, and I consider that a pretty cautious build-up. Who knows, maybe I'm naive, but the idea that I should spend 50% of my week recovering from workouts sounds counterproductive.

you should talk to your coach kid, and just do whatever he tells you to do. he's got a program and he doesn't need letsrun experts f***ing it up.