Firstly I am assuming that LT pace (lactic threshold pace) is your pace which you can sustain for about 1 hour under race-like conditions.
I am training for the 1500m-5000m outdoors and plan to race from may-july. Right now I'm in the middle of my base phase where I'm running anywhere from 75-105miles/week. This is made up of one LONG (16-20) run and the rest being 6-11 mile runs. (I do doubles 3-5 times/week) I run nearly all of this milage between 7:00 and 8:00 pace, whatever feels comfortable- although when I feel like going a bit faster I do. Once weekly I run for 30 minutes at LT pace (which for me I'm estimating to be approx. 5:40/mile based on my 5:20/mile 5 mile pace)
Unfortunatley because of the winter conditions where I live, and because I run outside for all of my training, this is more like 6:00 pace, though I feel the effort is the same. I'm not quite racing, but it is a hard effort, enough to get me breathing quite heavily at the end.
So my question- Am I running LT pace enough? If not then how many runs per week should I be doing this? and finally- how often to run these faster runs once I enter the hills/long intervals/short intervals/sharpening phases?
-thanks to all who reply