Why can I run 7:45 pace on easy days and still run my race times?

You're doing what works for you.

Easy is what easy is, everyone is different

It's probably to your advantage that you run slower on your easy days.

Because you're the man?

Who's to say you wouldn't be considerably faster training at their paces?

cooptastic wrote:

Who's to say you wouldn't be considerably faster training at their paces?

Vice versa works as well, if they recovered better they could be racing even faster.

There are certain adaptations that occur from easy(ish) aerobic running. There is a range of paces/efforts where you achieve the same adaptations... no more no less.

For argument's sake, let's say your range is 7:00-8:30. If the "range" idea is true (I think it is), then it's hard to justify running at the faster end of the range. You get no additional training adaptations, but you increase your risk of injury and possibly reduce your recovery for other harder workouts. Plus, if you run slower, you can tend to run longer duration, which WILL produce additional training adaptations.

Here is one example of the concept:

http://www.letsrun.com/2006/collegesuck.php

those videos are very informative on the topic

Just last week I've decided to change my approach and I've started taking it real easy on easy days, 8:30 miles. The last 2 days I did a total 3h of running and today I felt surprisingly loose for my 1st workout. No way I could have felt that fresh if those 3h were at 7:30.

This a strange thing that I have learned about athletics and performance is that (often) when we SLOW DOWN we perform better! A few examples. Chris Mccormack (a top level triathlete) told his friend to SLOW DOWN and walk more during Ironman. His friend walked SIX TIMES (instead of his usual two) and he beat his best time by 23 MINUTES!This guy on Slowtwitch would swim at 100% maximum effort and then go at 3/4 speed and his time for 3/4 speed was FASTER! My son and I used to play basketball at 100% effort and speed than one day we eased up to 80% effort and we slowed down and PLAYED BETTER! In other words slowing down and using less effort will often produce better results.

uh oh, not this again.

I have the opposite experience. Years of being told "you can't go too slow" and "you are probably running too fast all the time" made me a long slow runner.

When I finally picked up the pace and challenged myself with faster long runs, tempos and workouts, I finally got faster.

Recovery runs the pace doesn't matter, but those aren't that long anyways.

You can run too slow. OP must race a lot to maintain fitness.

actually, maybe this is consistent with OP. He says to run workouts hard. I agree. recovery runs don't matter. I just think we need to re-think the runners world advice, "you can't train too slow". super slow pace on long runs, etc...

long slow distance makes slow wrote:

I have the opposite experience. Years of being told "you can't go too slow" and "you are probably running too fast all the time" made me a long slow runner.

When I finally picked up the pace and challenged myself with faster long runs, tempos and workouts, I finally got faster.

Recovery runs the pace doesn't matter, but those aren't that long anyways.

You can run too slow. OP must race a lot to maintain fitness.

There is a huge difference between running slow every day, and running your easy & recovery days slower, so you can run your hard days more effectively.

Or, if you periodize, maybe the hard stuff comes in a few months after a period with more miles and relatively more easier stuff.

Maybe you got bad advice. Or maybe you received good advice and misunderstood it. I'm leaning towards the latter, since you seem to think we're talking about running slow ALL the time, which we aren't.

I have found whether to run easy days easier or not depends on how many workout are done each week.

Most people schedule 3 workouts per week, some even 4 if you want to include their long run. It is hard to recover adequately in 48 hours if the easy days are run too fast. Higher mileage runners who run twice per day can get away with it by running their morning run the day after a hard effort slow, at recovery pace. By afternoon they are ready to run their easy run faster with no lingering effect on their next hard workout.

People who only schedule 2 hard workouts per week have no problem recovering between hard efforts and can run their easy runs faster.

Of course, as we get older, we all need extra time to recover from hard efforts.

What is this range of paces you speak of where adaptations are all the same no matter how fast?

Running easy runs at 7:00 pace if you can handle it and still be completely recovered for your next workout is much better than 8:30 pace. The problem RoJo was having in college was not recovering completely prior to next hard effort. That is because he was scheduling too many hard efforts per week. In order to keep his frequency of hard workouts the same he was forced to slow down on easy days. Had he reduced the frequency of hard efforts the easy days could have been run faster.

Getting used to a faster pace on easy days is part of what made Mo Farah the runner he is today.

In addition, running easy runs at 7:00 pace will make harder efforts say at 6:00 pace or faster not feel so fast whereas an easy run at 8:30 pace leaves you gasping for breath on hard days when the pace is much faster.

I cannot believe the adaptations are the same for 8.:30 pace with a HR of 120 or lower and 7:00 pace with a HR of 150.

The problem is with recovery from the previous hard effort. As long as recovery is adequate faster easy runs yield superior adaptations. This can be handled by decreasing the frequency of hard efforts allowing faster easy runs thus quicker adaptations.

Lydiard stated that aerobic running could be done slower but it would take much more time to get the same effect.

Bowerman frequently had his athletes follow a hard effort with two easy days. There is nothing set in stone that you must run 3 hard workouts per week. Fewer workouts also leaves more room for strength training, eg. Weight lifting. Plus, the extra recovery leads to fewer injuries.

Great posts Jay. Thanks. Sort of what I was getting at. Long slow distance made me slower and I had to up the pace of all my runs to make progress. Running the "easy" days faster if possible does help.

Good discussion. Thanks for the feedback. I don't average 8:30 for anything except a cool-down. I nearly always average under 8:00 for all my normal runs. As far as that goes, though, would there be much of a difference if one were to train at 7:15 pace instead of 7:45? I certainly see the difference between 7:00 and 8:30, but what about one that is more subtle?