Slower recovery runs=faster racing?

"I'm a 14:55 5k guy and i usually run my non-workout days no slower than 6:20 per mile pace."

My 5k PR is about the same as yours (and my over-35 PR is 15:08) and I run 80+ a week and rarely run faster than 7:00 pace on an easy day, as far as I know. I don't time easy runs once I know the rough length of a course. The few tiems I check out of curiousity when I am somewhere measured, It is rare for me to be below 7:00 pace. I like to run hard, fairly high volume workouts and very easy, easy days. I think this scheme is generally better. There is no way I could run 6:20 pace the day after some of my workouts. That would get to be a grind day after day.

Agreed with those who said that 6:20 is not recovery pace.

Either you are lying, or are about to spontaneously combust.

Spikes are for real runners wrote:

Early age? Todd Williams had a fairly long and distinguished career the last time I checked

Check again. Todd Williams retired in his early thirties.

Exactly at what age would you expect him to retire?

Oh, that's right, Lopes was great at 37, enough said. . .

Lopes was not only great at 37, he peaked then, running all time PRs at multiple distances. Williams retired in his early thirties but his peak was his late 20s.

age 50

5K pace: 6:20

10K pace: 6:35

40-45 mpw, as follows:

4 days a week: 3-4 @ 9:45-10:30 pace (very slow)

2 days a week: 8-10 progression: start 9:30 pace, end w/1-2 @ 7:00-7:30 pace; in season, 3-5 w/up; 3 hard fartlek; 1 w/dn

Sunday: 13-15 @ 8:30 pace av. (9:00 first half / 8:00 second half)

Slower recovery runs aren't an issue for me. I've always run them as true recovery--i.e., at 65% of max HR. Four days a week I'm a slow jogger. The FASTEST I ever run on those days is 9:30 pace--three minutes a mile slower than 10K pace. (I'll occasionally mix in a few 20 second strides, though; this really helps keep my speed alive.) I learned years ago that this is what worked for me.

My racing has been helped not only by hewing pretty strictly to this regimen, but also by following JK's advice about starting ALL runs at a slow shuffle and taking a little longer to build into a solid aerobic pace than you think you need to take.

The result is that my three longer runs each week almost always become progression runs in which I hit it pretty hard in the final few miles (or on the return leg) and feel great while doing so. I've been racing well and consistently on this program.

My experience is that pushing it on recovery runs leads to chronic soreness and uneven racing.

But every runner's body demands slightly different things. We're all experiments of one.

my advice... take off your watch and just run on recovery days. don't worry about pace and just run how you feel. if you feel like shit you need to run slower and that will just happen if you let it and not get caught up in pace. i am also a firm beliver in high milage as well.

An important distinction to make here is the difference between different types of runs that are not hard workouts.

Here is how I like to break it down:

Recovery: VERY easy, no regard for pace, best run with people who are slower than you are. These are usually the run after a hard workout (either later that day for a shakeout or the next day) and should feel SLOW.

Easy Runs: Just that, easy running, what most of us would think of as going out for a normal run, not pushing it at all but not specifically running slow. If I have more than one day in between hard workouts, some of the running will be "easy" as opposed to "recovery." Also, during base phase, because I'm not really doing hard workouts, most of my running is what I would consider easy, normal running.

Moderate: This is still steady running, but with some distinct effort going into it, though always running very much under control. For a 15 min 5k guy, I would consider low 6:00 pace to be "moderate." This is not meant to allow you to recover, it is meant to build (not maintain, but build) stamina.

What I have found is that I have focused on longer distances and my workouts have become longer, I have to do more "recovery" running because a single workout is simply more depleting than it was before. However, I also do fewer workouts, so with multiple days between workouts and long runs, some of my runs end up being "easy" with occasional "moderate" runs as the schedule (and my body) allows.

The point above posters have been making is extremely valid. If you are racing on Saturday and running workouts on Monday and Wednesday the week leading into your race, that Tuesday run had better be very distinctly a recovery run. If not, you are compromising Wednesday's workout (either running it too hard or too slow because you are tired) and probably your race from residual fatigue. Further, you don't reap the full benefits from your Monday workout because you get faster by letting your body adapt, which it only does during recovery time.

To sum it up, if you are running workouts, some of your runs need to be genuine recovery runs. However, not every non-workout run ought to be a recovery run.

runner39 wrote:

some good advice prevail,

what is your opinion on using a HR monitor for recovery runs?

If you feel you need it, by all means. You might consider using it as a learning tool and then discarding it if you don't like it. I personally go by effort and keep the word "easy" fresh in my mind at all times but I have used a heart rate monitor in the past.

I run all my mileage at 730-800 mins. Have legit PR's of 148 339 357 755 and 1350. It works. doing your off day runs too fast is the biggest mistake by most runners. if you are not recovering from your workouts completely than you are loosing the benefits of even doing them and are actually setting yourself back.

If you are running your easy days at 6:20, you are probably not running your hard days hard enough.

TO wrote:

One thing that I often try to keep in mind, however, is that training at 8 minute pace is very irrelevant to running a 5k at 4:45 pace. Running 6-12 miles at 6:20 pace is pretty relevant to running a 5k at 4:45 pace, though of course, running a 6-8 mile tempo at 5:20 is even more relevant. Obviously the hard workouts that are probably in the pace range of 4:00pace to 5:20 pace are the most important with respect to running a sub 15 5k, but I still maintain that running at 6:20 pace is better for your 5k than 7-8 minute pace, as long as you aren't compromising your hard workouts by doing it.

Running 6.20 pace is not relevant whatsoever to racing a 5k. Thats the point. Your easy days are only relevant in that you need to recover for the days that ARE relevant. I agree with people on here.

Run as fast or as slow as you think is good. The ONLY thing that matters is that you feel fresh the next day.

I'm wondering about the circles of thinking we all run around in. If wejo says it works. If peter snell says train slower to race faster. If mark allen says the same. He most of kenya and ethiopia are doing it. If the great fins did it. If canova and cabral are both saying it on lets run. Where is the confusion?

I agree with the idea of doing the easy days real EASY. But, me and some friends have been wondering: Why should it be running?

When running slow, my form is nothing at all like when I run fast. According to the principle of specificity, I'm not training the right muscles when I run slow and I'd be just as well suited to ride a bike or something. It will pound my legs less, and the motion is no further away from my racing form as slow running is (although it's different than slow running).

There's got to be something wrong with that logic, so someone point it out....

Perhaps the answer is this: Running is a lot about managing and transferring impact forces. Slow running may not look like fast running but it still could be training your body to deal with impact forces (just in a softer, lighter way) that biking/pool running never can. Even the lighter impact forces from slow running are still training many of the same muscles used when handling the harder impact of fast running. So, even if I'm shuffling, the "right" muscles in my quads are firing and the right muscles are still getting capillarized/mitochondria development etc.

Personally i feel the standing posture becomes the jogging posture which becomes the running posture and so on into striding and eventually sprinting. The posture and rhythm are the same. The difference is the intensity which merely magnifies everything. So you lift a little further off the ground as you get faster like a hydrofoil and the range of the limbs increase likewise. That's how i see it.

While no one has even mistaken me for an elite runner, I did get the "religion" of slowing down on recovery days demonstrated to me quite effectively. I hit a "stall" a few years back, basically despite adding mileage, intensity, etc, nothing was happening. I would still struggle to hit the same old race times. After a couple failed attempts to PR in the marathon I got coach who after a few weeks looking at my logs saw it right away I was "medium training" when I should be hard/easy training. I go run with the boys, some of whom were much better than I was, on days that I should have been recovering for the days that counted.

I cut back to two (and later three) "hard" days a week, strapped on an HRM to keep myself honest on the easy days, checked the ego and let the boys go on recovery days and at the beginning of long runs. It was a bit of a blow to get dropped on runs, but after 4-6 weeks weeks a major transformation started to take place. My interval and tempo runs were starting to have an "edge", I could hammer sets of long intervals and start reeling people in at the end of long runs. After about 8 weeks I saw an improvement in race performances, and I got that marathon PR even under less than ideal hot conditions.

So my recommendation is save that testosterone for the days it counts and then it's hammer time. Hard should be HARD, any extraordinary efforts on the other days is taking away from the goal.

I think there is something to be said for running how you feel. Of course, if you are hammering intervals and tempo runs, I would imagine your other runs (recovery) would naturally be relatively slow (as you should 'feel' a bit tired from the hard stuff). Your hard runs should be (and feel) hard. It's odd to me when people say they don't run slower than x pace, given that seems to be at odds with feeling things out. It seems that picking an arbitrary pace that doesn't coincide with how one is feeling on a given day is not a great way to train.

As for those folks who say running 7 or 8 minute miles doesn't 'feel' like running; I imagine you are just accustomed to pushing things a bit and aren't used to feeling easy and relaxed, or you just don't like the notion of 'running slowly', and you don't think it is doing anything for you. I suspect 6:20 pace all the time is in no-mans land...too slow for speedwork, and a bit fast for true recovery.

It's so much easier if you have a heart-rate monitor.

1. Put your HRM's stopwatch on countdown for the period of time you want to run based on an estimated mile pace (eg, 63 minutes for 9 miles @ 7 minute pace)

2. Make sure your heart rate stays within the "recovery" zone based on your max and resting HR

3. Head out and run wherever you want, keeping to softer surfaces where possible

That way you don't run too fast and you keep some variation in the routes you run. You also don't have to worry about progression--you just make sure your HR stays roughly the same.