Tinman

I read that thread too, good question.

And as an extension to this question, does the ~1:00/mile rule hold for all 5k paces? For example, a minute is much longer compared to a 4:25 mile pace than it is to a 6:00 mile pace. For paces farther from elite level, should the time added be an equivalent percentage of the time of an elite athlete, or something more concrete?

VERY good question, I'm interested as well. This 1-minute +5K pace sounds like the upper-end aerobic work that JK recomends, and the same thing that Hadd also recomended to push up as high as possible before hopping into Lactate Threshold work because he said it would be "too hard of an effort" in the base building phase.

I'm awaiting an answer as well.

Not tinman here, but I believe that the paces that he will suggest will be 5:10-5:25, in range of what was once termed Aerobic threshold.

For now, you can just add about a minute to your 5k time to put yourself close the Aerobic Threshold, what I call ATR (aerobic threshold running). If I had to write it another way, I would say that adding 20% to your 5k average per mile time would be more exact. However, If you are near the 1 minute rule, you are close enough. I say this simply because, though you might be 54 seconds, if you use my 20% rule, you probably ran your 5k race in flats or spikes, had eased up in training a little, and were psyched for the race. So, my thinking is this: one minute over 5k is close enough when you are running in training shoes and not tapered.

Historically, there have been numerous runners who follow this 1 minute rule, but they don't state it definitively. Take even our lauded Malmo, he did many distance runs in his career in which he picked up the pace in the last few mles so that it was moderate to moderately hard, but not hard. Intuitively guys like Malmo know the benefits of training at this effort/pace. You simply push your lactate curve to the right, faster velocities. This is akin to runing at LT, which is faster.

I have mentioned a few times on letsrun.com the need to consider the continuum of energy that runners deal with in training and racing. I do not beleive there is one perfect pace to train at, nor does any successful veteran run every run accordingly. Varying the intensity levels is essential to evolvement of the performance engine you use to get you from point A to point B. Runing a variety of paces along the continuum is the way to go. More later. Tinman

Tinman, Do you prefer zone or man to man..??..what did Bowerman prefer..??

Bowerman was definitely a man-to-man advocate. He individualized all workouts, so no zone for him.

Me, well, when it comes to basketball, I prefer a mix of zone and man-to-man, depending upon the talent of your team and heigth of your players. Tinman

Bobby Knight wrote:

Tinman, Do you prefer zone or man to man..??..what did Bowerman prefer..??

Hahaha - thats pretty funny. I am sure Tinman likes man to man better since it involves more effort at around LT pace. Zone is for lazy players who have not done enough aerobic development.

Zones encourage players to be lazy, stand around and not help out on week side D. But they can help out if you have foul problems, slower, shorter or just plain lazy players.

How about heat (let's say 90 degress)? How much do you think it will be affected by wind. Where I train it is 15-20mph winds gusting between 22-36mph with the wind coming right up the home straight.

By the way, your posts are great.

Adjust your velocity accordingly. If you raced on Sat. morning and you ave. 5k pace was 5:30 per mile, meaning you ATR is 6:30 per mile and your LT is 5:56 per mile and the temp was 70 degrees, then add some time to your ATR and LT paces if it is hotter. At 80 degrees, add 2% more to your time. At 90 degrees, add 5% (total) to your time.

Your new LT at 80 degrees (instead of 70 degrees) would be 6:03 and your ATR would be 6:38. At 90 degrees, your LT would be 6:14 and your ATR would be 6:49-50.

Tinman

Thanks. This helps a lot.

Your aerobic threshold actually occurs around 30km to marathon pace depending on how fast or slow you are.

Regarding wind, I have never created a formula to use for adjusting paces. I will think about it this weekend when I have a chance to read about drag. For now, I would adjust pace about about 2 seconds per mile for every 5 mph of headwind. This is merely a guess, so wait for further details. I suspect the change in velocity due to a headwind would be exponential, say +1 second at -5mph, +3 seconds at -10 mph, + 5-6 seconds at -15 mph, etc. Tinman

Actually, for marathoners who run 3:30 or faster, it is slower than marathon race pace (about 20 sec. per mile). I will pull out my charts and calculate some examples when I get home tonight.

Aerobic threshold is the first significant rise in plasma lactate. It typically occurs at around 2 mmol of lactate, but it can vary according to muscle fiber population. If you have a lot slow twitch fibers, it will occur at a lower lactate level. It doesn't matter what the actual mmol level is. Tinman

Ok, at home now. I pulled out "Lactate Threshold Training" written by Peter Janssen, M.D., an authoritative book on endurance training and this is what I found:

Jannsen -

2:31 marathon time = 5:46/ mile

= 5:58/ mile for Aerobic Threshold

Tinman - = 6:02/ mile for Aerobic Threshold based on an equivalent 5k time of 15:36 (5:02/ mile)

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Jannsen -

3:01 marathon time = 6:54.5/ mile

= 7:10.3/ mile for Aerobic Threshold

Tinman - = 7:02/ mile for Aerobic Threshold based on an equivalent 5k time of 18:02 (6:02/ mile)

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You can see that isn't much difference, except I use an easy measure (5k time) and just add one minute per mile to the pace. It ballparks you to Aerobic Threshold without having to run a marathon or doing a fancy lactate threshold field test to determine it. Tinman

3:01 marathon time = 6:54.5 / mile

=

You know what just hit me when I read that first post? Go look the the Hadd website where he shows the progression chart of the "Joe" example he gave. Then look at the fist page here for the thread on Hadd progress one guy made in a year. The corresponding heart rates/paces don't match up so how could all those pace calculators work? Seems like shit to me. (But I'm not expert.)

I am not Hadd nor the runner you mentioned. Tinman

Tinman wrote:

I suspect the change in velocity due to a headwind would be exponential...

I'm thinking square law as frictional force (air drag) is proportional to velocity. There would be a bias or offset as well to take into account the runner's velocity. I seem to remember a wind curve in Daniels' Running Formula that looked vaguely parabolic.