Minutes vs Distance

I've pondered the same question before. We all have good days and bad days. Lets say you want to do an 8 mile run and you noramlly average 7 minute pace, thats 56 minutes. But if your feeling really crappy one day and really tired you may be running 7:45-8 pace which means, if you had intended on running 55 or so minutes that day and now you end up running 60-65 you obviously ran longer than you had intended too. The thing I have a hard time realizing is on the days that you feel bad or feel off, those should be the days you should listen to your body and not end up running longer than you intended. Yes this cuts the mileage some weeks by alittle, but I think thats where us OCD runners have to quit thinking about making our log books look pretty and just focus on listening to our bodies.

I'd like to hear what others think about my opinion.

In my experience, runners need both. I believe most runners learn to run and feel different effort levels(easy, medium, hard) when their easy/recovery runs are done by minutes.

Normally, I like to give my runners work outs in minutes (ex: 10X1 minute fast/1 minute recovery) when they're coming back from injury or illness and all other easy/recovery runs in minutes as well. The reason for this is to have them focus on effort and without trying to match paces or splits they did in the past when in shape.

After the first race, I prescribed work outs in meters/distance but continue to use minutes for their easy/recovery days.

I ran 70 physical (Garmin) miles last week, but I logged it as 140, because that's the elite-equivalent in running minutes.

I tend to run based on miles but that is my personal preference. Some days I do just go for time and estimate my pace. The way I look at it is over the course of a week if I am short or long by a little bit it all evens out. When I feel tired I slow my pace down but still do the distance. The slower pace allows my body to recover while still putting in a productive day. However as long as your putting in a genuine effort I don't think picking miles or minutes makes a difference.

just like haile wrote:

I ran 70 physical (Garmin) miles last week, but I logged it as 140, because that's the elite-equivalent in running minutes.

Funny, Haile usually says the opposite. Nice try, though.

Lets say your average run speed is 6 minute miles and on a slow day you run 7 minute miles.

With that in mind what you're saying is that if normally you run 10 miles in 60 minutes its a productive day. On a slow day 8.5 miles in 60 minutes isn't productive but 10 miles in 70 minutes is productive.

In this example 1.5 miles separates productive and unproductive. 10 minutes more makes you more productive in essence in your description.

Wouldn't it make more since that if you run 100 miles a week in 600 minutes that if you have a bad week and run 100 miles in 700 minutes in order to be "productive" it would actually be drastically UN-productive. You just ran 100 more minutes this week, which on a normal week would be 16 extra miles. If you wouldn't add that extra distance on a good week, why would you add that extra duration on a bad week?

Get a GPS watch. Theyre like 120$ at walmart now. Save up and get it. You can run for one hour and then see "exactly" how far you went.

IMO the Minutes debate has been over for awhile. Just doesnt take enough into account. Energy expenditures (and therefore training effect) equate more logically to distance. Run for minutes if you like... but you are missing the point.

I would say a mixture. (Except most of my runs are in kilometers).

If you are slower, probably better to use minutes.

Also for long runs and recovery runs, to avoid the temptation to speed up.

Distances only really become relevant during interval training or time trials.

Most of my runs are circuits with known lengths, so for time planning purposes, I usually pick the distance, and maybe some optional extensions, that I know will take an approximate amount of time.

I think what I may start doing is what some of you had hinted towards above, I think for at least this next month I will run for minutes on my recovery days, on my tempos & longruns I will use my garmin and make my own conclusion on what works best for me. Interesting debate, to each their own I suppose.

Maybe you have a point that the difference in productivity between 8.5 miles in 60 minutes versus 10 miles in 70 minutes for 1 day, is negligible.But adding 1 minute/mile, on average, for 100 miles, over a whole week, is really really slow.Using Horwill's 4 second rule (each slowdown of 4 seconds/400m allows you to double the distance), slowing down by 1 minute/mile should allow you add to 700 miles, or 4900 minutes, to the week. Maybe something else prevents that magnitude of increase, but simply adding 100 minutes in duration, to 600 minutes, over a whole week, for the same 100 mile distance, should be no problem. It should be much much easier.(For this scenario, a 3 second rule is probably more accurate, making the example even more absurd).

I run by time now for all runs after my Garmin broke. Best thing that ever happened to me. I recover better, I feel better and my races are going really well. The only thing that I know distances on are if I go to a track for intervals.