easy run pace?

xckid173 wrote:

My easy run pace feels TO ME like I should be running 8:30-9:15 miles.

Run that pace. Pick it up some days if you want to.

xckid173 wrote:

My easy run pace feels TO ME like I should be running 8:30-9:15 miles.

... it says my easy runs should be held at a 7:13-8:14 mile pace. This is much faster. ...

You answered your own question. Easy pace should be just that: Easy. If easy is 8:45's, then do that. If 8:00's are too much and it is an easy day, then don't push it to try to hit some arbitrary number.

With that being said, anything slower than 9:00 minute miles might be a little too slow for you, unless you are just feeling really sluggish and want to take it extra easy.

The McMillan calculator has only caused more problems, confusion, and junk thinking than it has solved. Just pretend you have never read it.

Go on runsmart project, they are a lot more accurate for training paces (within 2-3 seconds of my PRs I was doing those same paces as the calculator told me to) I run a 16 minute 5k and have broken 10 and it only has me at 6:50-7:05 or so. Easy needs to be easy, I learned that the hard way.

Thanks for all the advice guys!

xckid173 wrote:

Thanks for all the advice guys!

We are all girls, but you're welcome.

Daniels suggests 07:56 - 08:26.

There's a broad range of aerobic paces, from "best aerobic effort" (Marathon pace) to recovery pace.

I run pretty much all my non-workouts at a conversational pace. I'm a high-17 5k runner, and that's 7:00 to 9:00 for me. On days when I'm well-rested, weather is cool, and the road is flat, low-7's can feel very easy. On days when I really need to recover from some tough workouts or a race, conditions aren't great, and/or it's hilly, my pace slow dramatically.

The key for me is breathing. HR can be all over, but I try to run at a pace where I CAN breathe out of my nose. I'm normally breathing hard enough that it's more comfortable to mouth-breathe, but pure nasal respiration is sustainable. There's a huge variation in pace and HR associated with this respiration level, but it seems to keep the effort just about right.

Another way to think about "conversational": imagine if someone was next to you, you'd be able to get full sentences out and talk. But, you'd certainly be breathing heavily and pacing your speech around your running, so that if you were on the phone while running, the person on the other end would ask you what the heck you were doing. Running SO easily that you could fool someone on the other end of a phone into thinking you were sitting on the couch is probably TOO easy, unless it's a pure recovery day, like after a big race.

Spaghettimonster wrote:

Go on runsmart project, they are a lot more accurate for training paces (within 2-3 seconds of my PRs I was doing those same paces as the calculator told me to) I run a 16 minute 5k and have broken 10 and it only has me at 6:50-7:05 or so. Easy needs to be easy, I learned that the hard way.

Spot on. This calculator is within 1-2/s for all my PRs from the HM to 800.

OP: Run by feel. I felt terrible yesterday and thus my easy pace was an 8:15 jog.

When I was in 15:10 5k shape my easy runs were always slower than 7:00 pace. I didn't do anything between 5:30 and 7:00 pace. I have trained with a 2:21 marathoner / 14:14 5k runner who would have been irritated had I made him run 7:00 pace for an easy run.

When I was running 15:10 for 5k, 31:30 for 10k and 1:09 for Half I did 3 basic types of runs.

1. Lots of mileage and doubles slower than 7:00 pace

2. 7-10 mile tempos at 5:12-5:30 pace

3. Interval workouts of around 6k to 5 miles at about 2 mile to 5k race pace with shortish active recoveries (it would vary depending on interval length - faster for 400s, slower for 1600s).