Is it at all possible to be running too slow on my shake-out/secondary runs? I usually like to crawl on these runs, and I was curious if anyone knew what kind of benifit I am getting, if any at all, and what are the benifits on the whole from a secondary run??
I think all of this "I just run 7-8:30/mile on my easy runs" is just BS. Get out there & pound out the miles, you think they give away first place? Here is a novel idea why even run, just go for a hour run each morning to loosen up? I have done that & then trained 15 miles hard. Do you think H.Gebr is out there jogging around in the morning? I doubt it.
I don't think it's possible to do that run too slow, as long as it's not very long, and it's the secondary run of the day. The whole purpose of it is to recover. Just run at whatever pace loosens you up. The benefit of this run is in the recovery, not in the speed.
Just do what ever feels good, Getting out there is the important part. I'm not sure on the validity of this but I have heard that back in the day Shorter and the rest of the Fla Track Club would get up early and jog really easy, like 8 min pace for an hour every morning. Obviously LSD didn't hurt him too much.
hammer-head wrote:
Do you think H.Gebr is out there jogging around in the morning? I doubt it.
Actually, he has been quoted as saying he runs in the morning to "open up the lungs", and runs about 15k in 1 hour (that's about 4 min/k or about 6:30 per mile, which IS jogging for him)
In response to hammer-head. Do you really think Gebreselassie hammers every run as hard has he can? I actually wondered this myself until I settled my inner controversy with Lydiards phrase, "train don't strain." After spending a month with a few of the top racers in the world, I found out what Lydiard really meant. Many morning runs, the pace would be exaustingly slow. One morning, one of the S. Africans even made a joke about it and started walking while we continued to run. Of course, other mornings were at a quicker pace, but none raised the heartrate above the threshold level. I asked why our runs would be so slow in the morning, and was told that the runs were to help recover from the harder runs during the week - including 3 track workouts of speed and speed endurance (20*400's in 65 (race pace) or 5*2000 in 5:30 for example). Now Gebreselassie might run quick relative to what our perception of "quick" is, but I can bet his heartrate stays in a "recovery" zone. Until you are at his level, you can't train by using his exact schedule.
Look at Lydiards schedules - a perfect layout of his entire plan is at
. For your everyday runs/recovery runs etc., a good measure to go by is keeping your heartrate under 160bmp. You can even start out lower and work your way up to this in the beginning part of your run. I would like to say one thing. I don't think Geb would be where he is today if he just went out a hammered every run anaerobically. He has trained smart, and it's this misconception that get's many kids to only run on the track, thinking every run has to be very intense. Hope this helps. sorry for making it so long.
hammerhead get your head out of your ass, if you are going out and running 10 miles in the morning and fifteen miles in the evening hard thats 25 miles per day at threshold pace, and that is BS. thats 175 miles per week. When do you recover? when do you get rid of the lactate you build up? What do you do for the rest of the day, attach yourself to a glycogen drip?
You need to THINK about what you do, in the mornings the body is waking from a period of inactivity, your joints are less flexible, your muscle are cold and generally you won't have mnay calories on board, so when you go out and run hard you are just depleting your body. The whole point of training twice per day is to speed up recovery between the runs which do test your fitness and to build a base on which you can begin to build.
How many times have we read on this board about the japanese and the slow speeds at which they run in order to recover. I remember reading an interview with Moses Kiptanui and Daniel Komen where they said the early miles of their morning run would be run at 8 minutes per mile. i think you need to look at how a good athlete trains. speak to somebody who is running above your level and ask them, most people in our sport are very approachable, but you have to be prepared to listen otherwise you will just destroy yourself.
Ahh my head is out my ass where is your face? I said IF YOU READ my post I would/have WALKed an hour then RUN a 15 miles HARD. Never did I ever say I waz running 175/week. The most I have ever done is one 99 & most of them have been in the 70's at my highest. So please get your lips off of my ass thank you, but it does feel so nice. I would run 4mi in the morning, 8, 7, 6.5 & then 6 minutes/mile. I saw no reason to loaf around. Thanks moron
morceli (sp) old mile world record holder, ran as slow as 10 minute miles on easy runs somtimes
In 2000, I was at the Puma camp in Nyahuru and was surprised how slow the 5pm recovery run was each afternoon: 42 minutes for 8 kilometers. Only got faster if the women showed up and pushed. After the jog, we would do quite a few mobility exercises and stretches. Most days they were on their own for an easy steady pace in early AM before mid-morning hard effort. Seemed to work for Osoro, Rutto,and Kiprotich.