keeping up with the lead pack? serious question

On easy days their pace is about 1:20 min faster than mine. On interval days they're about 10 to 15 secs faster in the 400m. I don't try running with them all the time for I don't wanna look like a fool, but I do feel the need to start pushing myself now after a recent PR

You will not benefit from trying to hang on to them in long intervals. If they are doing 6 x 1000m repeats with 2:00 rest, and you try to keep up with them, you will probably fall off of the group by the second or third interval, and the rest of your workout will be trashed.

Instead of getting 12-15 minutes of time at your max heart rate (2 to 2.5 minutes per interval, assuming it takes 1.5 to 2 minutes for you to get your hear rate up and that you are in about 20 minute 5k shape), you will get about 5 or 6 minutes at your max heart rate before you blow up. On top of that you will have done nothing to help yourself get any sense of what race pace feels like, because you will have been running much faster than race pace, and, if you end up finishing the workout, the remaining intervals will have been much slower.

If you are doing a tempo workout, you will be running faster than your 5k race pace, so the tempo run will be cut short too, or you will drop down off the back in misery pretty early on. In any event, in the best case scenario, you will have beaten your body up much more than necessary. The goal of a tempo run is to adapt to the buildup of lactic acid. That can be accomplished at your tempo pace. Running at 5k race pace or faster does not increase the lactic acid buildup so much more as to justify the shorter amount of time run; it ends up defeating the purpose.

Finally, if you are running at rep pace (usually 200m or 400m repeats), you may have a little more room to play, but the purpose of this workout is primarily to improve running economy. If you are running your reps all out in order to try to keep up with the faster runners, at some point your running form is going to suffer - again, defeating the very purpose of the workout.

I think even the "run at goal pace or with the faster guys to force yourself to improve" guys would agree that 40 to 60 seconds per mile is too big a delta to be helpful to your training.

Well their easy pace is way too fast for you so don't even try.

10-15 seconds is also way too much faster for the 400m. You can try to limit the gap to maybe 10 seconds for the 400ms and push yourself, but you need to be honest with how much your body can take. It's a thin line, and you want to get as close to it as possible without crossing it.

If they were only 5 seconds faster on their 400ms I would say run with them maybe every other rep and see how it goes.

Rojo, can you ban user "formerD1"?

There are already enough blowhard jackoffs on this board.

Thanks buddy.

FYI the Kenyans who run at goal pace during their workouts end up saying stuff like "training was harder than the race" because their training paces are faster than their race pace.

the Kenyans say wrote:

FYI the Kenyans who run at goal pace during their workouts end up saying stuff like "training was harder than the race" because their training paces are faster than their race pace.

Who? Examples?

You should learn to do your own research. There are many sources and books and interviews that mention how fast and hard the Kenyans do their training.

the Kenyans say wrote:

You should learn to do your own research. There are many sources and books and interviews that mention how fast and hard the Kenyans do their training.

You're the one making bogus claims. If there are many examples then it would be easy for you to name a few? Say hi to Sully for me. ;-)

Man, not everyone is world class. There are dudes on here who cannot run 11 minute mile pace.

You may be there someday. That is if you can even run at all in your 60s!

Get real.

You can help these people.

Bro, read my original posts on this thread. I was encouraging OP to go for it, push himself and run on feel! Not to create some artificial self-limitation imposed upon you by Jack Daniels, Malmo or whoever thinks they hold the formula to success.

Running, at least to me, is a journey of self-discovery and breaking limits (and records, even personal ones). Too many hobby joggers and American runners in general view running as some mechanical "program" that they must go through to achieve x time. It's overly complicated, overly idiotic and just plain wrong to run that way.

OP has nothing to lose, NOTHING, but giving it a go and seeing if he can hang with the faster group. The moment you stop challenging yourself and pushing your limits is the moment you stop being a runner and start being a hobby jogger.

OK you're dumb and lazy.

Third result from a 2 second google search.

http://www.joyfulathlete.com/2012/08/24/run-fast-to-race-fast-the-genius-of-renato-canova/

From Canova (world famous trainer of world class Kenyans)

"That’s the core of Canova’s philosophy. And it’s appealing – “You can only do in a race what you’ve practiced in training.” Pace, not distance, is the guiding principle. Better to run 16 miles at your goal marathon pace, Canova believes, than slog through a 24-miler that does little to improve your endurance at race pace."

-RUN AT GOAL PACE

“A Kenyan runner’s mentality is to run at the right speed,” says Gavin Smith, Canova’s assistant in Iten, Kenya. “The Western runner’s mentality is to run the right distance. A good example of this is a workout where Abel Kirui was the only athlete, in an elite group of 20, capable of running the full 4 x 6K workout. Yet most went home happy knowing they’d matched strides with a world champion. In the United States, meanwhile, most runners would be disheartened if they didn’t finish an assigned 20-miler, no matter how ugly it got at the end…."

-RUN AT GOAL PACE EVEN IF IT MANES YOU CAN'T FINISH THE WHOLE WORKOUT (PLUS AMERICANS ARE STOOPID)

"Following the Golden Rule of Canova, to achieve your best race-day performance, you must practice running at or around goal race pace for long periods of time."

-RUN AT GOAL PACE

I saw in my google search that there are several more articles stating how Kenyans change paces even during interval workouts, adjusting their speed as appropriate and that Kenyans are extremely aware of their body condition and run hard when they are feeling good and run easy when they are not.

You're dumb and stupid and are unable to support your claims. Running at goal pace isn't anything new, nor is it something the Kenyans do exclusively. As was stated earlier in the thread running at your goal pace isn't the same as running at your faster training partners goal pace.

Say hi to Nick Willis for me.

First, it is one thing to say that you should do some or all of your training at goal pace, but it is a far different thing to say that you should run with folks who are running at a pace that is not reasonable for you to set as your goal pace. And it is one thing to believe that running at goal pace will be beneficial, but it is far different thing to say that this means that running at your current race pace is counterproductive.

Secondly, are you really going to use the "Some Kenyans do it, so it must be the right thing to do? Between the genetic differences, the doping allegations and the percentage of the population there who run (resulting in those who have a tremendous capacity for workload survive and thrive, while we never hear of the many who don't), do you really believer that what some portion of this group of runners may do is necessarily a game plan for everyone?

Here's my data point of one:

I could not handle training at goal pace. The people I see doing this are workout champions who underperform in races.

For me, I find current race pace challenging but appropriate. I'll do 5x1000 and it will feel tough by the end and I'll wonder how the heck I recently raced 5k at that pace for the entire distance. And then throughout the season as my fitness improves eventually current race pace becomes goal pace.

My advice is to START your workout at the designated pace. I'm not sure where you get your workouts - books, internet, coach. By the time you get 1/4 to 1/3 into it you should get a feel for whether you are having a good day or bad day and can adjust the pace accordingly. One caveat: don't be tempted to turn every workout into a gut buster. If you're feeling good and decide to speed up, but that causes you to feel like death by the end of the workout, that's not smart. Finish feeling tired but not spent, if that makes sense.

Two signals for me about workout intensity:

1) Any time I had to go hands on knees after a rep, I knew I was working very hard. Those workouts do have their place, but should be rare. Even a light shuffle after the repetition shows that you have more in the tank. Hands on knees shows you're red-lining.

2) Similarly after the last rep, if you can walk over to your gear, take a sip of water, then begin your cooldown close to immediately (~1 min), that shows you left something in the tank which is good. If you need more than a minute to walk around & catch your breath before beginning cooldown, I think it shows you were digging pretty deep.

I would say 9 out of every 10 workouts should leave some gas in the tank. I saw my biggest improvements doing something like this.

1) I never said you should run at your faster training partners' goal pace so stop with the moronic strawman arguments

2) The Kenyans have no faster training partners because their goal pace is some imaginary dude who runs at World Record pace

What I did say, is that people SHOULD do training at a pace faster than what they are currently capable of running (goal pace).

I don't know why we're talking in circles.

Smoove wrote:

First, it is one thing to say that you should do some or all of your training at goal pace, but it is a far different thing to say that you should run with folks who are running at a pace that is not reasonable for you to set as your goal pace.

I agree, and I don't think I ever said anything to the contrary.

Smoove wrote:

And it is one thing to believe that running at goal pace will be beneficial, but it is far different thing to say that this means that running at your current race pace is counterproductive.

If ALL your running is done at your current race pace, yes I think that is very counterproductive.

Smoove wrote:

Secondly, are you really going to use the "Some Kenyans do it, so it must be the right thing to do?

No, but I think it is something OP and every runner should try from time to time. Runners are way too cautious and are afraid of pushing themselves too hard for fear of injury or burning out. Too many horror stories out there.

Find me one online coach that says you should do a substantial portion of your training at goal pace. Oh that's right you imbecile, there is no such online coach. Online coaches make their money from giving hobby joggers advice on hobby jogging. If they promote a program that is too intense, too painful and with risk of injury, they will go out of business very fast. Yet, this literature constitutes 99% of all internet advice about running, and hobby joggers like you embrace this as gospel.

If you want to graduate from hobby jogger to runner status, well guess what? You need to learn to accept but gusting workouts and run at goal pace at least some of the time. In college we almost never looked at our watches when doing intervals. We didn't even know our splits until we were done with the rep. Our entire pacing was based on a combination of feeling, and how fast the people in front of us were running.

Did you even run in college? Why are you still talking?

formerD1 wrote:

Did you even run in college? Why are you still talking?

Why are you still talking? No one cares what you say except your alternate usernames you're creating (some Kenyans say, former all american).

All competitive training programs include harder workouts at a wide range of paces including those roughly corresponding to goal pace, faster, and slower. Not a new or unique insight. That is independent of EFFORT, whether you race all your workouts like formerD1 thinks (bad) or learn to run most of them relaxed and under control like malmo, Canova, wejo, JK, and many, many others have been preaching for years.

Malmo has never written a book or training formula or been an online coach.