Loks like I have to revise my training thanks to Salazar

**Looks

You might as well try it out and see where it gets you. Won't find out what works until you try.

this just in wrote:

This is not written in a sarcastic tone. Actually, I was quite taken aback, being a letsrun faithful for many years, and reading that going EASY on non-workout days is apparently overrated.

Please explain what the eff you're talkin bout, Willis?

Works for Farah right now, Hall decided it didn't work for him.

If this is based on the interview with Salazar and Mo from Birmingham; don't forget Salazar said he has to tell Mo when to back off and take it easy too.

I think this is the hardest thing for a self-coached athlete (I assume you are).

I think a lot of runners confuse basic mileage runs, and recovery runs. I'm a 15:40 guy and I do "easy mileage" anywhere from 6:00 to 8:00 pace. If I had a hard effort yesterday, I'm going to run 4-5 miles in the morning at 7:30-8:00 mile pace. I might come back that afternoon, start a 7-10 mile run at 7:30 pace, and end it at 6:00 pace. There's a place in training for a lot of different paces that are "easy run pace," but they serve different purposes.

Check out the McMillan calculator. As funny as it sounds, the training paces it suggests for Mo match up really well with the paces discussed in the article. (I'm sure that's where Salazar got his idea! lol).

For Mo (based off his 10000m PR), the 6:45 he used to do was at the slow-end of the "Recovery Jog" zone. His new 5:45 pace is at the slow-end of the "Easy Run" zone, so really not that agressive (the fast end is 30 seconds faster). The 5:30 pace for long runs is just about in the middle of the "Easy Run" zone, and the faster side of "Long Run" zone... although could still be about 15 sec/mi faster and still be within the recommended range.

As others have said, I'm sure they are still including the Recovery Jog paces when necessary, but for the general training runs it sounds like they're utilizing the Easy Zone, which was previously neglected by Mo.

For you, a 15:50 5k guy, the McMillan zones are:

Recovery Jog: 7:24-7:54

Long Run: 6:24-7:24

Easy Run: 6:24-6:54

So yeah, your idea of fitting in some shorter (at first) runs around 6:45 (to 6:54) sounds like it would be worth a try. Then use your 7:45'ish jogs when you really need to recover.

Another data point: Daniels Running Formula recommends Mo's "E" (Easy) pace to be around 5:40. (no faster than).

Daniels Running Formula gives your 15:50 an "E" pace of 6:54.

Daniels claims there is no advantage to going faster than these paces for your easy, general training days, in order to reap the maximum benefit of the run. You can definitely go slower, but like Lydiard explained, it will take longer.

http://www.runbayou.com/jackd.htm

you are misinterpreting some things.

because Mo is doing X does not mean you should be doing X. YOu are not MO and have not been doing what he has been doing - have you?

Understand that just because he is now running 1 minute faster on his recovery runs does not mean his is not running easy on his recovery days...after doing many miles at a slow (fat-burning pace) a quicker pace will feel easier. for him 5:45 is easy. He also probably didn't change his pace on these runs overnight...this was a gradual process.

if you are like MO on a 4 year olympic plan you probably want to be chaning things up each year

year 1 - slow base building

year 2 - maximize milage

year 3 - begin to increase the pace & bring milage down

year 4 - add in the high quality speed work

one of the reason the slow fat burning pace is so important is it improves you effciency at all paces. and makes doing those faster workout easier on you - you can recover much quicker from them.

many runners mistaken think that after they bring their milage down and start running faster, that the key was bring down the milage...but perhaps is was first raising the milage and then bringing it down. (does that make sense?)

example - say you have been running 120-140 miles per week with a lot of slow long runs.

then you bring it down to 100+/- and you notice your race times get quicker.

What caused the improvemnt?

1) lowering your milage

2) doing the base first and then lowering your milage

to your idea of "switching from a steady diet of 10-12 milers at 7:30 pace"....first if those have been your long days - i would say switch to a steady diet of 16-20 milers at that same easy 7:30 pace if not slower (see if you can slow down to 8:00+ pace - the slower the better for now)...but also when you do 5-7 milers, 6:45 pace is not going to get you anywhere - if those are meant to be steady state or tempo runs they need to be faster than that - your should be trying to run in a zone of efficiency. for a 15:50 guy that would probably be 5:30 - 5:45....shoot for the higher/slower pace first and then gradually bring it down as you get fitter.

malmo wrote:

Please explain what the eff you're talkin bout, Willis?

Malmo, what's your opinion on pace of easy runs, just listen to body? The McMillan calculator, good or bad? your logs show a lot of runs faster than 6min pace yet you were not as fast as Mo Farah (not meant to be offensive)

thanks

So you will listen to AlSal but not Lydiard or any of the guys from the 60s-70s where running 1-2 mins off your 5k pace was standard? There are numerous training articles where guys talk about 52 min 10 mile runs being a staple of training. They would do some slower running (i.e the morning run might be 6 miles a 6:30 pace) but the second workout was something along the lines of 10 miles in 52 mins.BTW cutting your volume in half is stupid. Start running 1 day a week faster. If it needs to be shorter fine. But after a couple weeks you will adjust to the faster pace. Then add a second day.

this just in wrote:

This is not written in a sarcastic tone. Actually, I was quite taken aback, being a letsrun faithful for many years, and reading that going EASY on non-workout days is apparently overrated.

I run 15:50 for 5K and most of my runs are at 7:30/mile, excluding workouts. Since Mo Farah is doing his runs at 5:45/mile, that means I should be running close to 6:45/mile. ( 1.5 minutes slower than 5K pace)

Is that why I find it so easy to run 80+ miles /week? All this time I've been running junk miles!!! No wonder I get beat by some local guys who boast not having run more than 40miles/week!

I'm thinking of altering my weekly running by switching from a steady diet of 10-12 milers at 7:30/mile to 5-7 milers @ 6:45/mile

I thought it recovery days were all about running by "feel". Somedays 6:20 pace is effortless and other days it's not.

break it up wrote:

I thought it recovery days were all about running by "feel". Somedays 6:20 pace is effortless and other days it's not.

If I read you right, you may have "recovery days" misunderstood. It would be shortsighted if every other run besides the hard workouts were recovery runs. The reason being that such an approach would amount to a very small amount of running with movements fairly similar to racing (I'm calling 1.5 min/mi slower fairly similar). Going 2.5 min/mi slower just isn't as effective at raising aerobic fitness. The truth is that we can run comfortably hard at a moderate pace quite frequently.

the truth is you should run as fast as you possibly can in general, which should get faster with consistency.

do not cut your mileage in half as you will soon lose the benefits of high mileage.

and as salazar said, maybe try some weight training and more miles.

easy runs should be at 65-75% of Max Heart Rate, which also cooresponds closely to 65-75% of vVO2 max.

This is fast enough to maintain good biomechanics (i.e. not teach your body by biomechanical habits) and slow enough to ensure recovery.

with a PR of 15:50 your likley VO2 Max pace is around 4:55.

This would make your each pace range about 6:32 to 7:32 per mile.

Most people find they are usually in the fast half of this range on most normal easy runs and in the slower half of the range on secondary runs and first run after a very hard workout or race.

I was a consistent 15:30-50 guy..ran 80 per week...unless I was running a workout, my runs were at 6:30ish pace. Looking back, I should have been running slower on non workout days, and ran more high volume interval days if I had it to do over again.

It's not such a big deal to run hard every day when you're on drugs.

If you end up deciding to change how you train every time you read or hear about some world class guy doing something different than you're doing you'll drive yourself crazy and probably not get anywhere.

That said, at this point you are running neither as much nor as fast as Farah or Rupp are. Trying to imitate them either by running more but more slowly or by running faster but with fewer miles will leave you with an incomplete imitation. Maintaining your volume AND running it faster would align what you're doing more closely with what they're doing but that might be too much for you.

On the other hand it may not be. I was a mid 15:00s/32:00s guy at my very best and was almost always running at about six minute pace in those days once I got warmed up and if it wasn't a bad day. I'm sure a lot of peole will say it was too hard but it did not feel hard most of the time. It was an effort, but a manageable one. Eventually I got talked into going much slower on my "recovery" days, something I never really had before. It made no difference.

I did not consciously try to run six minute miles. I just ran as fast as I could without getting out of breath.When I started getting serious I was doing 7:30-8:00 as a rule simply because that was the fastest I could run comfortably and I was following Lydiard's "Train don't strain" dictum. In the course of 3-4 years that same effort yielded progressively faster paces so the sixes were no more difficult than the 7:30s once were. That was in line with another Lydiard principle; training faster as you got fitter.

I believe that Bill Baillie once said that most runners now do their intervals too fast and their distance work too slowly. I'd generally agree. It used to be pretty common to find people who ran 6:00 pace or better on their distance runs consistently. Now it's fairly uncommon from what I can tell and I think a lot of people would race better if their overall training pace was faster.

BUT you have to let that faster pace come to you naturally. If you just decide, "Ok, I'm dropping it by thirty seconds no matter what" you may end up killing yourself.

Rec Runner x wrote:

do not cut your mileage in half as you will soon lose the benefits of high mileage.

But I thought that any time a runner dropped his or her mileage and had success, it was because of gains made during the higher mileage period, not any change in training, no matter how long ago they changed their training?

this just in wrote:

This is not written in a sarcastic tone. Actually, I was quite taken aback, being a letsrun faithful for many years, and reading that going EASY on non-workout days is apparently overrated.

I run 15:50 for 5K and most of my runs are at 7:30/mile, excluding workouts. Since Mo Farah is doing his runs at 5:45/mile, that means I should be running close to 6:45/mile. ( 1.5 minutes slower than 5K pace)

Is that why I find it so easy to run 80+ miles /week? All this time I've been running junk miles!!! No wonder I get beat by some local guys who boast not having run more than 40miles/week!

I'm thinking of altering my weekly running by switching from a steady diet of 10-12 milers at 7:30/mile to 5-7 milers @ 6:45/mile

Your arithmetic is wrong. Try this

Mo Farah 5000m pace 4.10/mile

Your 5000M pace 5.15/mile

5.15 divided by 4.10 multiplied by Mo's easy pace

= 7.15/mile