A lot of guys have broken the 4 minute mile mark in the past couple of weeks, and all of them are saying " no speed work " done yet. High mileage is the key, it's a fact, no speed work needed huh ?
A lot of guys have broken the 4 minute mile mark in the past couple of weeks, and all of them are saying " no speed work " done yet. High mileage is the key, it's a fact, no speed work needed huh ?
Depends on what your definition of speed work is. Is 5x1600 at 5k speed work? How about 12x400 at 1500m pace? Or is it only 16x100 all out?
ohboy wrote:
A lot of guys have broken the 4 minute mile mark in the past couple of weeks, and all of them are saying " no speed work " done yet. High mileage is the key, it's a fact, no speed work needed huh ?
That's because they could run a sub 50 sec. 400...right, no speed? Please! How many 54 sec. / 400 PR's ever ran a sub 4:00 mile?
They would never be where they are today had they never done speedwork, so yes speed work is needed.
The base provides the big engine and then the tempos, which these guys were doing, get you a long way there. They were probably also doing some speed maintenance from strides and maybe even plyos and squats. Plus, obviously they had not lost that much speed from previous years of speedwork. But most of all you're usually not going to drop a huge amount from the end of the base period, particularly with a few 3k-5k pace workouts, to full speedwork, because top end speed is not needed in distance running, except maybe for the kick. The speedwork will get you more efficient and powerful but this is a question usually of less than twenty seconds for a miler, and for these guys maybe 5-10 seconds at most from here out. Some of these sub-4 guys will not run faster this year even as they get into heavy speedwork.
jonesy. wrote:
The base provides the big engine and then the tempos, which these guys were doing, get you a long way there. They were probably also doing some speed maintenance from strides and maybe even plyos and squats. Plus, obviously they had not lost that much speed from previous years of speedwork. But most of all you're usually not going to drop a huge amount from the end of the base period, particularly with a few 3k-5k pace workouts, to full speedwork, because top end speed is not needed in distance running, except maybe for the kick. The speedwork will get you more efficient and powerful but this is a question usually of less than twenty seconds for a miler, and for these guys maybe 5-10 seconds at most from here out. Some of these sub-4 guys will not run faster this year even as they get into heavy speedwork.
Lol
I believe it, for the most part. Some people are the type of runners that get the best results from miles upon miles. I actually surprised myself recently. I've been training primarily for marathons for almost a year, and ditched all speedwork (one could argue that I might need some speedwork for a marathon, but I chose to run for the sake of running and enjoy it, and my enjoyment in running comes in lots of easy-mid paced miles), and ran primarily easy to mid-paced longer runs. After having not done ANY speedwork since late April last year, in mid-January, I decided, on a whim, to enter a 3K, not knowing what to expect, but expecting that all my speed was gone. Well, to my surprise, I didn't really run any slower than I was running last year when 3K-5K was my focus and I pounded out 400s frequently.
tell us, are you really LAUGHING OUT LOUD? Are you also ROLLING ON THE FLOOR LAUGHING?
"no speed work" has become the standard rhetoric of everybody in the U.S. that runs anything indoors. We in the US are caught in a weird situation of having indoor track taken very seriously in some parts of the country and not serious at all in other parts. therefore people who are in peak shape and are overwhelmed at the prospect of bettering themselves come june will say "i haven't done anything real specific yet" to pump themselves, and people who get rolled by guys they beat in the spring or were beating in cross say "i haven't done any speedwork yet"
That's a common experience. I had a slight 3k pr on base alone recently (no tempos, one 1200 workout three days out--the pace felt easy) but struggled at the mile earlier in the same meet, because of the lack of speedwork. Guys running sub 4 mile indoors are entirely another kind of animal, but if you have been paying attention over the years, you'll see this phenomenon repeatedly, very fast times during indoors and then little or no improvement outdoors. Now, as I said, I don't believe that these guys aren't doing stuff like tempos and strides, but the base work is the key. Take this with a grain of salt: this long base period (post-marathon in November to February) has seen a continuous drop in my heart rate at easy paces and the easy paces have been getting faster. My suspicion is the longer the base period, the bigger the aerobic engine to refine with mile pace work.
Strides are 100% speedwork and I bet most of those sub-4 guys do plenty of strides at race pace or faster during base.
Yep... wrote:
I believe it, for the most part. Some people are the type of runners that get the best results from miles upon miles. I actually surprised myself recently. I've been training primarily for marathons
I thought we were talking about mid distance guys here.
I for one am getting sick and tried of hearing runners saying, "haven't done any speedwork yet", and then running fast race times. What do they consider speedwork? There is no way someone can run just mileage with some threshold pace work and run a mile PR, has to be some intervals thrown in there.
They say it because the implication is that "just wait until I do...I'll be flying..."
BUT....
Look at these same guys 1,500m races outdoor. How many never improve on their indoor mile bests at the college level? A ton.
Don't put much stock into it.
what?? wrote:
They say it because the implication is that "just wait until I do...I'll be flying..."
BUT....
Look at these same guys 1,500m races outdoor. How many never improve on their indoor mile bests at the college level? A ton.
Don't put much stock into it.
Agreed. 10x400 in 59-60 wouldnt be considered speedwork for them. Its not until they do something like 5x200 in 24s with 5min recovery that theyve "done speedwork" and they mgiht only do a workout like that once in a year. I dont get it, the time they run is the time they run, I dont care what their training has been like, its about how you run the race not how you train.
yeah, I've been hearing guys say that for decades, after a good indoor or early seaon time...."I haven't even been on the track yet in my workouts".....these guys are either soooo talented or liars.