On my easy days I often find that I run 3:00-3:30 per mile slower than 5k race pace. I could run faster but then it wouldn't feel like a recovery run. Is this benefitting me? Would there be any benefit to trying to increase the pace of my daily runs? I feel like it's just going to hurt my workout days, but I don't want to be running junk mileage if I shouldn't be. Thanks.
I run 10 miles W/F and 15 on Sunday, with the first half of each run pretty easy but either hills or road intervals or a tempo run or a progression evolving after that. My averaged pace for the days is as fast as 8:10 pace and, on summer long runs, as slow as 9:40 pace. In the cool winter months, I seem to be averaging 8:20 - 8:40 pace pretty consistently for these runs.
On the other four days of the week, I run 3-4 miles very slowly. Very slowly means as fast as 9:30 pace and as slowly, in the summer, as 11:00 pace.
On this sort of program, I've been racing 5Ks around 6:20 - 6:30 pace and 10Ks arond 6:35 - 6:45 pace. Half marathons around 7:00 - 7:20 pace, depending on where I am in my cycle. (Slower as an early season strength run, faster as a goal race.)
Hope that helps.
40-45 mpw total.
I'm a 49 yo 6 min pace 5k guy and some of my rec runs are as slow 8:30-9 pace. Most are around 7:45-8:15. On easy days 7:15-8:00. I wouldn't worry about it that much, you want to recover. Just make sure your quality days are just that, quality.
I wasn't fast (15:2x-5K, 25:4x-XC, 1:11:1x-HM) but still decent. 60% of my distance running was done from 7:30-8:30 pace, another 10% was done at 7:00 pace, and another 30% at 5:20 pace.
Most of my runs are sub 705. I try to tell my body to slow down, but I have this mental problem that slow running=slow legs= slow races. Obviously, this is not the case. Sometimes when I need a true recovery, I will go run on a treadmill.
I believe in what Nic Bideau has to say about recovery runs. "They are easy to run too fast, hard to run too slow." These words I've repeated to myself hundreds of times during easy runs the last months.
Last fall I ran a 15.00 5k on track (10secs slower than my PR), but still most of my easy runs this winter has been between 8.00 - 8.50pr mile, sometimes even slower. (no kidding, I have a hard time believing it myself sometimes...) I guess some of the reason is that I've been running at 0600 hrs, because when sleeping in until 8 AM I usually run somewhat "faster" than 8min/mile. The rest is probably that I'm tired from the faster training.
I scheduled a semi long recovery run(8) for today. I will try my hardest to run 730-8.
Eddylee,
How is your training going this year?
JC
I got back from my run a little while ago, but I managed to keep it under control. I ended up running 7:23 pace. It was truly an enjoyable run.
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Hey,
Running is going well. I dropped my 5k pr down to 1622 (40 second drop) and my half marathon down to 1:17:29 in the fall. I ended up running 443 mile up in Flagstaff before getting injured. This is my second week back, and things are looking well. In the last 8 dyas, I have run 64 miles.
How are things looking for you. oh yeah lol, who are you?
I never generally dropped below 7:15 pace unless I was doing a coll down for a workout or race. 6:30-7:00 just felt good... even in high school. I actually feel as if I've shaken the pain out of my legs at that pace. But you need to just run what makes you feel comfortable.
If I go too slow, my stride feels like a shuffle rather something that resembles my racing stride. But I can go about 2:30/mile slower than my 5K pace without it feeling painfully slow.
bump
I tend to think that if I am going too slow, I am altering my stride too far from how it will be when I race. Its not like Im blasting either, just 6:30-7 pace for someone who ran in the 9:1xs last track season for 3200. When I run slower my turnover slows and my stride becomes the shuffle that is not beneficial biomechanically. At 70mpw I dont find that this pace in any way is making my recovery worse.
So lets see 5k pace is about 15:00~4:49 or so. So that means Im running about 2 minutes per mile slower than 5k pace, so maybe 3 minutes slower is too much? Everyone is different though and maybe biomechanics arent everything. Hope I helped at all.
You can still run very slowly with good biomechanics. The Kenyans ans Ethiopian runners practice this every day.
If you concentrate on getting a good bounce in your stride with good heel lift whilst running very slowly, you will not only recover better, but you will actually develop better biomechanics for running fast in a race.