Is it bad for college coach to insist our distance guys run 6:10-6:25/mile on a daily basis?

Anything slower than 70% of your goal pace is going to be a waste of time.

Look, I'm a 14'20 guy and my runs range from 6:45 pace to closing in 4:45 depending on the run and how fritzy my teammates are that day. If you go to a legit DI university, someone in the pack is going to be feeling good and push the pace. Many of our overall runs are quicker than 6:30 pace, easily on a daily basis.

Depends on your goals. If you want to run 15:00, maybe it's too fast. If you want to run sub-14:30 it's about right.

Wejo ran 7min miles in Flagstaff, didnt he?

Because I did a lot of my runs at that pace when I was at my best and at the time I only ran 1:14 half, and when healthy after my marathon break was doing a couple five mile runs a day at that pace recently (having only run 2:43 last month), I don't think that it's asking that much for mid 15 and under guys to do that, keeping in mind that you should do some recovery runs when you need them.

Lekuta wrote:

Anything slower than 70% of your goal pace is going to be a waste of time.

Look, I'm a 14'20 guy and my runs range from 6:45 pace to closing in 4:45 depending on the run and how fritzy my teammates are that day. If you go to a legit DI university, someone in the pack is going to be feeling good and push the pace. Many of our overall runs are quicker than 6:30 pace, easily on a daily basis.

Depends on your goals. If you want to run 15:00, maybe it's too fast. If you want to run sub-14:30 it's about right.

Totally not true. Haverford college has some bros that could match your time and their summer runs rarely go under 7:30 pace. Just because running hard on the daily works well for you doesn't mean 8:00 miles are worthless. They're not

just run baby

tomato donnelly wrote:

Totally not true. Haverford college has some bros that could match your time and their summer runs rarely go under 7:30 pace. Just because running hard on the daily works well for you doesn't mean 8:00 miles are worthless. They're not

I have run with Haverford in the summer and it was definitely not 7:30 pace. More like 6:20-6:00 for a 12 miler on trails.

The correct answer is that IF the coach knows his/her runners well enough that it makes sense for them to this, then fine. In 95% of situations they are clueless about some/most of their runners real needs, so the chances are it is wrong.

Supposedly a running coaches job is to guide each individual so that as a team they perform optimally. To claim that this pace is best for all is gross stupidity (and pretty much par for the course).

Christ the generalizations in this thread are almost unbearable. There are guys who race fast that don't run anywhere near 6:00 pace or whatever on their easy runs. And there are guys out there hammering pretty hard almost every day. The generalizations though are just ridiculous. Oh yea 7:15 pace is more than 70% of your goal pace, might as well just pack it in, can't get any aerobic benefit from it. Jesus do you really believe that?

Where do you come up with 70% of your goal pace (also that term doesn't make a whole lot of sense, do you mean 70% less than goal pace?)

To the original poster I think the answer again depends. There are guys who can squeeze in more quality on easy days without having workouts suffer and there are people who for the most part need to keep these runs easy. Some guys have trouble recovering, some guys do harder workouts, and some are just injury prone. I think that most high quality college programs out there are of the type where guys are getting in some pretty high quality runs (read: not slow jogging) on non-workout days. But that's not to say slower running is useless. Also i think a lot of these programs where quality on non-workout days is stressed take even a couple of years for guys to settle in. Some guys adjust but I'm sure some don't. Eventually i'm sure one becomes more used to running faster on easy days but again to call slower running useless is dumb.

also to the guys saying 15:30 guys can/should be doing 6 minute miles on their easy days, what should the 14:30 guys be doing for easy days. 5:35's? Get real. 5:20's for the 14 minute guys? I just don't see it. I'm all for occasionally running a little harder when feeling good, losing the watch and running by feel, but 6 minute pace for a guy who runs 5 minute pace in a 5k is just dumb unless you're doing it as a moderate workout.

"With all that being said, I would think anyone who can run 15:00 - 15:30 should be able to handle sub 6:30 pace without any strain."

That's simply not true...some people don't recover at 6:30 pace. You're obviously very talented and some people can recover at 6:30 pace really easily (in your case sounds like it was never a problem) but most people can't. Also there's a difference between "handling" and "recovering at" a certain pace.

I also laughed pretty hard at the 14:20 guy who closes easy runs at 4:45 pace.

yea ok wrote:

"With all that being said, I would think anyone who can run 15:00 - 15:30 should be able to handle sub 6:30 pace without any strain."

That's simply not true...some people don't recover at 6:30 pace. You're obviously very talented and some people can recover at 6:30 pace really easily (in your case sounds like it was never a problem) but most people can't. Also there's a difference between "handling" and "recovering at" a certain pace.

That is your opinion, not a fact. I stated mine, you stated yours. In my "opinion," it would seem that the only thing holding someone back from an easy recovery pace of 6:30 pace would be running too hard in workouts, not doing the right things with regard to stretching/nutrition/hydration after a hard workout, or are used to slogging through their easy days. If someone is used to running 7 min miles or slower, it most certainly will seem hard mentally and physically to run 6:30 pace but the physical part wouldn't take anytime at all to get used to - "In my opinion."

There is a difference between "handling" and "recovering" but when you add (like I did) "without any strain" to "handling" you get roughly the same thing.

Well let me turn that opinion into fact. I can confirm that not ALL 15:00-15:30 runners can handle 6:30 pace on an easy day. I cannot. It's not a mental deficiency or anything like that. It's just too fast even when my workouts are really light. I've also coached a 25 mid 8k runner down to a 66:46 half marathon, and a low 17 (female) 5k runner down to 16:33. For both of them I made sure they did NOT try to run their easy runs at XX pace per mile, and yes their workouts got harder.

I think anyone who said it's all about feel had it right. People give the high mileage folks a lot of crap on this site for being more concerned with a pretty log than performing in races, but the same can be said for the runner trying to make sure he never, ever, averages slower than 7 minute pace on a run.

What pace would you think a 15:30 5000m runner is running in long workouts? His long threshold pace (around his estimated marathon pace) is probably around 5:45 per mile. Given that, aerobic conditioning pace (what you would ideally average in a long run) would be 60-75 seconds per mile slower than marathon pace. This would more or less follow what Haile does, with his long run at approximately 5:40/mile, accepting the fact that his is run at high altitude and he can run it at a relatively higher intensity, both because of his acclimatization to high altitude, his talent and his decades of high level training.

Aerobic recovery would probably be an additional 60-75 seconds per mile slower than aerobic conditioning pace. So that gives three general training paces for the 15:30 5000m runner:

Long threshold (roughly marathon pace) at around 5:45 per mile (should be able to run 15km or more at this pace, either broken up with short rests or without rest).

Aerobic conditioning (long run) at 6:45-7:00 minutes per mile

Aerobic recovery at 7:45-8:00 minutes per mile

This is in addition to any race specific workouts.

tomato donnelly wrote:

Lekuta wrote:

Anything slower than 70% of your goal pace is going to be a waste of time.

Look, I'm a 14'20 guy and my runs range from 6:45 pace to closing in 4:45 depending on the run and how fritzy my teammates are that day. If you go to a legit DI university, someone in the pack is going to be feeling good and push the pace. Many of our overall runs are quicker than 6:30 pace, easily on a daily basis.

Depends on your goals. If you want to run 15:00, maybe it's too fast. If you want to run sub-14:30 it's about right.

Totally not true. Haverford college has some bros that could match your time and their summer runs rarely go under 7:30 pace. Just because running hard on the daily works well for you doesn't mean 8:00 miles are worthless. They're not

Might suggest that Haverford guys run closer to 7 min pace, as did Donnelly when he ran for Villanova.

Again, that is not a fact. You aren't willing to change your own training to try and make it work an are probably mentally not able to adjust.

Nothing about what you wrote about your two athletes proves anything. I have coached athletes from less to more. I know many of the top coaches in the country, ran under a few of them. My wife ran 6:30 pace or faster in college on her easy days and was a mulitple national champ. None of those coaches (including me) ever stressed the pace of runs. In fact, it was never mentioned, other than they I/they didn't want the athletes to be crawling on our/their easy days.....I just ended up running 6:10 or faster.

As mentioned in my original posts, I don't care if you run 6 min pace or 7 -8 min pace, it does come down to feel. You can have success both ways. When it comes to saying that someone who can run 15:30 in a 5k cannot handle 6:30 pace for a recovery, I believe that is foolish. It doesn't mean I think they have to run it, just that it makes no sense to me why they couldn't. I don't like weakness and that sounds like a weak way of thinking. Running slow just to run slow never sounded fun to me.

The post about all the different paces for recovery training is overboard in my opinion. I see one recovery effort/pace and that is comfortably relaxed.

Again, I don't think it is good for a coach to tell their athletes to run a certain pace (fast or slow). It is something that should be done by feel.

socalcush wrote:

short answer: no, it is not bad, nor unreasonable, for your coach to insist on this, if you're at a decent program, and you're roughly a 15:30 5k runner...

That's ridiculous. Not everyone can go that hard on their easy days. If I had to run my easy days faster than 7:00 pace I probably would have hated college running/quit.

I just wanted to say that in high school I sucked freshman and sophomore years (6:00/12:30), was injured all of junior year, and then when I came back senior year I ran less mileage but trained faster and dropped absolutely absurd amounts of time from my PRs (5:25/11:30). And I'm a girl so it wasn't like puberty accounted for it.

This has, of course, evolved into a training philosophy debate. After almost three decades of training, I have found that running at or near my "aerobic max" 5-7 days per week with with a small amount of short fast repeats and frequent racing is what works best for my physiology.

6:25 pace would be way too slow for me in this system (unless I was quite out of shape). Most of my runs start at 7:00 pace and quickly progress to 5:30 pace or faster, but I run no more than 7-10 miles this way. When I was running double my current 60 mpw, 6:25 pace would have been fast---probably too fast.

As many posters have stessed, the pace is all about the context in the training strategy.

Of those of you who say around 7:00 minute pace or slower for most runs, how many of you ran D1 in college?

Nobody here cares about your opinion on this if you run slower than say 16:00 for 5k or anywhere near that because obviously something is not working for you.

hank moody wrote:

Nobody here cares about your opinion on this if you run slower than say 16:00 for 5k or anywhere near that because obviously something is not working for you.

They could just not be very talented.

Wilco will love you baby wrote:

This has, of course, evolved into a training philosophy debate. After almost three decades of training, I have found that running at or near my "aerobic max" 5-7 days per week with with a small amount of short fast repeats and frequent racing is what works best for my physiology.

6:25 pace would be way too slow for me in this system (unless I was quite out of shape). Most of my runs start at 7:00 pace and quickly progress to 5:30 pace or faster, but I run no more than 7-10 miles this way. When I was running double my current 60 mpw, 6:25 pace would have been fast---probably too fast.

As many posters have stessed, the pace is all about the context in the training strategy.

What's a good result for you?