What happened to super-slow long runs?

Distance Maniac wrote:

If you're not running at 6:00 pace or better, then you might as well be sitting on your ass eating potato chips watching the boob tube.

Joe Vigil

It bears noting that the English second-person pronoun is ambiguous among the singular, the plural, and the impersonal. So it's quite probable that Joe Vigil uttered those words at some point, perhaps even to the Distance Maniac himself. And there's a good chance it was good advice when it was uttered. But surely Vigil didn't mean for it to apply to all runners in all circumstances.

Incidentally, I think I read somewhere that Ryan Hall does his easy runs (not long, of course) at 6:25 pace.

Oh really? wrote:

Distance Maniac wrote:

If you're not running at 6:00 pace or better, then you might as well be sitting on your ass eating potato chips watching the boob tube.

Joe Vigil

It bears noting that the English second-person pronoun is ambiguous among the singular, the plural, and the impersonal. So it's quite probable that Joe Vigil uttered those words at some point, perhaps even to the Distance Maniac himself. And there's a good chance it was good advice when it was uttered. But surely Vigil didn't mean for it to apply to all runners in all circumstances.

Incidentally, I think I read somewhere that Ryan Hall does his easy runs (not long, of course) at 6:25 pace.

Maybe Vigil didn't mean it literally - maybe he just meant that you should take your runs at a decent pace instead of just jogging around.

Running is probably the only aerobic sport where long duration workouts are not standard. Elite bikers, swimmers, nordic skiers (probably most equivalent) do easy workouts of 4-7 hours pretty regularly. World Cup Nordic skiers (many of whom jump in a 10,000M race for fun and run 29 or so) regularly do 4 plus hour over-distance workouts.

The Japanese have always and still do long slow runs.

http://www.lydiardfoundation.org/blog/EntryDisplay.aspx?EntryID=93

In ROAD TO THE TOP by Joe Vigil he outlines quite a different story pertaining to the long run. On page 122 he outlines how fast indiviiduals should run 30k. He breaks it down into four (4) levels. Local, Collegiate, National and International levels. I am not a computer type so I cannot scan it, but for a 32:00 10k runner he would have you run 2:18 for the 30k. Which is about 6:25 per mile. On the following page he has you doing your easy runs between 4:20 and 5:00 per km. That is 6:45-8:00 per mile. Not a jog, but also not a killer pace for anyone in that shape.

vladimir wrote:

I am not a computer type so I cannot scan it, but for a 32:00 10k runner he would have you run 2:18 for the 30k. Which is about 6:25 per mile.

Bad math. That's 7:25 per mile.

My bad it is a typo. The point I was trying to make is that slow training is "in the ability of the runner" when a 13:00 runners goes along at 6:00 pace that is the same effort as an 18:30 runner going along at 8:15. My coach always wanted us to go along at the slowest possible pace that we could keep our running form. That was on the easy or long runs. On our hard days it was more a pace or stride runs.

After rereading my post, I wanted to add that I am speaking of a 13:00 and a 18:30 5k runners.

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Let's revisit this one quickly.

For a 45 year old Master runner who wants to be nationally competitive what constitutes a long slow run?

Roughly.

Say 23 miles in 3 hours?

I did 63 miles yesterday to work on my base for a sub 2:40 this spring. Now I'm drunk. Yeaaaaaaaaaaah!

Junk Master wrote:

For a 45 year old Master runner who wants to be nationally competitive what constitutes a long slow run?

Say 23 miles in 3 hours?

For what event??

I'd say 21 miles at marathon pace is long enough, once every 3 weeks.

Other than that, keep up the daily/weekly miles, run for 90 minutes once or twice a week.

It's more important to keep up the miles than super long runs.

That's for the marathon.

Apparently all of Ed Whitlock's training is this kind of running.

I realize that the long-slow 2-3hr. run is not currently in vogue with present day training systems. I do question the longevity of athletes who place lots of emphasis on long tempos. Will be interesting to see how long their careers are?

Does Joe run a six pace?

Yeup wrote:

Distance Maniac wrote:

If you're not running at 6:00 pace or better, then you might as well be sitting on your ass eating potato chips watching the boob tube.

Joe Vigil

Candidate for most inaccurate and foolish quote by a runner ever.

Yup all relative. 5 min /km or about 8 min miles seems slow as molasses to some. I'm a female 100k runner and this pace puts things right about 8:30. It seems like a relatively slow pace, but try holding that pace for 8 or so hours. LSD is good for all the reasons others above have stated plus it develops those slow twitch muscle fibers a good ultrarunner needs. Plus, ultrarunners need to do those 4 or 5 or more hour runs to get accustomed to "time on the feet". I mix it up though. Sometimes I use marathons and halves as tempo workouts. It's often quite effective because at a race I can tuck in behind some guy and let him rabbit me to the appropriate pace for the workout. Doing a marathon 10-15 min slower than your real marathon pace will not cause recovery issues if you are already a trained and serious ultrarunner and you space things apart properly. Irony is sometimes I get lucky and win these "training" races or go top 3 though that's never the original plan.If I enter a marathon as part of my 100k training, I have to look at it for just that because trying to burn down the barn in the marathon could eff up my 100k result and or recovery.

I'm following the progress of a 2:30 marathoner. She reports recently that she just ran for 4 hours between 5:10-4:55 per km. So that's 8 minute mile pace for a 30 miler. Is that super-slow? No. It's designed to teach her body to burn fat, as others have mentioned. Would it be a waste of time to run slower for her? Ask her coach, I suspect it would be a waste. Her body is in the fat-burning zone as fast as about 4:30 per km so I wonder why she goes that slow (5:10-4:55), maybe to make sure that she's not over-training?.

She's better than most of us. For the hypothetical 3 hour marathoner this would translate to about 9 minute mile running. Pretty slow. By the way she almost never runs faster than 10 mile race pace. This is pretty extreme, she herself has said it's almost like a different sport because it doesn't hurt, but hey, she's going to the Olympics this year and seems to have found her event.