Training mile without speed

I ran 4:50/1500m one year after I took up running in my mid thirties on one year of slow training (20-25 mpw) and 4:30/1500m after another year of mostly aerobic training (25-30 mpw). My runs were mostly 7:00 - 8:00 minutes per mile, sometimes going anaerobic down to 6:00 when racing 5k or 10k. I have virtually never ran faster than 5 minute per mile in my training. I am not a good sprinter either, 13-14 seconds/100m and 26-27/200m but I ran 5:30/1500m at elementary school when I was 14 off no training (but there were no computers back then and I was an active kid).

You're welcome.The threshold and track days did not accompany a "distance run." My standard warmup was 3 miles total, and my standard cooldown was 2 miles. Therefore, the threshold days were about 9, and the track workout days were almost always longer than 10.I didn't do morning runs at the time since I think they're irrelevant at under 70mpw. I'm at 80-90mpw now so I do them (almost) daily.I respect Jack Daniels and have his book on my desk even now, but by God his "easy" paces are ridiculously fast. I never (repeat: never) pushed easy runs. The general rule of thumb is that you run as fast as you can hold a casual conversation. On some days that might be 6:10 pace, and on others it might be 7:00 pace. I think of distance runs as recovery runs. The most important thing is to go by "feel." Eventually as you get stronger, a certain effort will end up being a faster speed. But to try and run a certain pace instead of going by effort is a huge mistake.I think it's a huge myth that you have to do "speedwork" or "race-pace" workouts in order to throw down PRs. Strength = speed.However, about 6 days/week I would do 6x80m strides after my run/workout, where strides 3,4 were about race pace (maybe) and the rest were 3k pace or so.

Serious Question for real wrote:

Injury is ball of the foot bone issue that is healing. Uphill running won't help much since it puts the same kind of pressure on the ball of the foot as sprinting or near sprinting.

This forum has plenty of great injury threads, no need to make this into one.

Easy running, plenty of tempo, some vo2 intervals (how much considering can't do stuff faster?)

Worth trying to do any form of xtraining to reach near max heart rate? Or does the non-specificity make it not worth it?

In that case, high intensity pool running including cycles of 3 minutes on, 1.5 minute recovery.

envewi wrote:

In that case, high intensity pool running including cycles of 3 minutes on, 1.5 minute recovery.

I'm very interested in how effective this would be. feel free to share any results you can point to from this sort of thing.

Thanks for replies. One more thing. Was wondering what your longer distance performances were like. Would you say the 1500 was your strongest orwere you better at longer stuff?

I see myself as a pure 1500m/mile runner as my times have always been much much better than anything longer or shorter. I'll stick to answering questions about my fitness the year I ran 3:48 off of the "slow pace" training, as my PBs now reflect a different approach.I didn't attempt the 5000m that year. However, the best indicator I had of my endurance fitness was this workout: 3.5 mile continuous tempo: 5:10, 4:50, 4:30, 2:05. So the last 3k was about 8:23 and the last 5k was about 14:35. I estimate based off this that I could have run at least 14:20.I hope that answers your question.

Serious Question for real wrote:

Thanks for replies. One more thing. Was wondering what your longer distance performances were like. Would you say the 1500 was your strongest orwere you better at longer stuff?

Just want to say thanks to Reality Check for a simple answer of running a track work-out on the grass.

My runner did one 200 today and sure enough, shin pain. I had him do a few 1000's with one minute rest on the grass starting at a "faster than training run pace" and he felt great.

Just can't do the fast 800 pace stuff right now.

You want some strength work for a high school miler. Here is a winter workout for you to try.

3 mile Tempo (30 secs faster than 5k RP)

(4 min rest)

2x200

1x600 (Fast)

2x100

stepping back a little, you might want to consider having your injury prone athlete do regular calf strengthening exercises. There seems to be a direct connection between lower leg health and calf strength:

"The Minnesota researchers wanted to see whether the shinbones of the runners with a history of stress fractures were weaker than those without. Earlier studies suggested that this would be the case. But few studies have examined the size of the runners’ calf muscles. Bones tend to adapt to the muscles around them; puny muscles can mean puny bones. The Minnesota scientists, using a new machine that examines bone in three dimensions and measuring the runners’ leg muscles, found that, surprisingly, the injured runners’ bones were as strong, in relation to their muscle size as the bones in the uninjured runners. But the injured runners had significantly smaller calf muscles and therefore also slighter bones. The primary difference, the researchers concluded, between the women who suffered stress fractures and those who hadn’t was the size (and presumably strength) of their calf muscles."

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/phys-ed-how-to-prevent-stress-fractures/

But, shin splints are caused by an imbalance between the over developed calf muscles and the under-developed tibialis anterior and tibialis posterior in distance runners. I've been able to keep most of my runners shin splint free over the years by working hard on developing the tibialis tendons with dorsi-flexion type resistance exercises.

It seems to me that strengthening the calf muscles would exacerbate this imbalance.

So you have a PR at a 4:09 mile equivalent but you were finishing tempos at 4:15? You are either lying your face off or are THE practice champion.

In high school athletes things like shin splints and other over-use injuries are quite common. I have found these injuries occur for a couple of reasons:

1. The student-athlete is new to running or have running back ground.

2. Not having the proper shoes.

3. Improper training such as the increase in mileage to sudden (i.e. they did not run all summer then try to jump into training with their friends who have when the season starts.

4. Running on concrete

One thing we have done and have seen a dramatic decrease in injuries is quite simple, run on trails. I realize this is more difficult for some teams more than others. Despite having a small team of 40 or so and being at a prominent football school the administration has been supportive in getting us vans and buses to travel to trails for training. This means much of our time that might be used on form drills and strength work, etc. is used on a 20-30 minute bus ride but for us staying injury free and getting in 8-10 miles on trails has increased the enjoyment of running and reduced injuries. It give the kids social time on the bus and is more fun than running on smog filled congested streets. It also keeps them moving as they don't have to stop at lights.

Some other things we do to curb injuries:

1. Instead of a morning run 3 times a week on the roads we do an hour pool running workout.

2. Instead of using our track we run down to the local Junior High and use their dirt track and grass field.

3. Ice bath after every hard workout.

4. Do the little things to strengthen your feet and shins.

This is all mostly applicable for cross country but I write this because we have begun to transition our distance team in track to be more like XC. We start with a month or two of base running like we do in the summer introducing fartleks, tempos and strides. We hold off on the hard VO2 Max work until later in the season (January to June is a long season, especially following XC from June-early December). We don't start hitting the track until March, which in California still gives us 3 months of hard track training.

But to answer your question is it possible? Yes. Optimal, probably not. But following our XC season we always do a mile time trial. And every year we have 70-80% get their personal best. I think for High School athletes the biggest factor is aerobic training, gaining strength from mileage and physical development from maturation.

Is it possible? Absolutely. Model the start of your season like a cross country season and then go from there.

3:48 is more like 4:05 equiv.( + or - a second)

And closing in 2:15+2:05 is 4:20.

Thanks "learn your stuff" for owning Flea for me.

learn your stuff wrote:

3:48 is more like 4:05 equiv.( + or - a second)

And closing in 2:15+2:05 is 4:20.

Interesting. If anything I find Daniel's easy pace to be on the easier side of things. I'm usually extremely relaxed and would be very chatty at his paces. If it's a really off day and feeling crappy I can be a 15-30 seconds slower than what he says but for a general easy run I usually find E pace - 10 or so to be about right.

McMillian's easy pace, especially the fast end, are pretty fast though. Unless it's like the perfect day I'm never at the fast end of the paces that his calculator recommends.

My Daniels book is from 1998. After a quick review, it seems that the E paces have been revised (now) to about 15s slower which would put me at 6:05-6:10 instead of 5:50-5:55.Still, on easy days I tend to start out at 7:00 and finish around 5:50, so there's no way I'd average that pace overall.

LM wrote:

McMillian's easy pace, especially the fast end, are pretty fast though. Unless it's like the perfect day I'm never at the fast end of the paces that his calculator recommends.

Daniels E paces were revised down, and for average HS kids are just fine. As runners get faster, the E paces seem to many to be too much.But there's also a school of thought for middle distance runners that most of their mileage should be progression-type runs that get down to Marathon-pace for the last few miles. (Joe Rubio)

Med School Runner wrote:

My Daniels book is from 1998. After a quick review, it seems that the E paces have been revised (now) to about 15s slower which would put me at 6:05-6:10 instead of 5:50-5:55.

Still, on easy days I tend to start out at 7:00 and finish around 5:50, so there's no way I'd average that pace overall.

LM wrote:

McMillian's easy pace, especially the fast end, are pretty fast though. Unless it's like the perfect day I'm never at the fast end of the paces that his calculator recommends.

The great thing about the pool is that the recovery can be ridiculously short.

For high intensity pool intervals, i always have my atheltes take 30 seconds recovery. Also, you can do a high intensity pool workout every day without worrying about burn-out or injury. It will feel like hell for the first week or two, but after that rapid adaption will occur.

Some suggestions:

10x3 min

1,2,3,4,5,5,4,3,2,1

6x5min

etc.

30 min seems to be the best amount of time, both from an aerobic benefit and also from a mental fatigue perspective.

-S

In my opinion, get the kid healthy. dont prolong an injury.

I took 3 weeks off from running and biked my a$$ off.. 60' steady, 20' hard, intervals. Only took me about 3 weeks of running to get close to where I was before.