Coach wants me to run no slower than 7 minute pace for every run this winter. My 5K pr is 19:5X

Test.

Two basic guides for how your body is responding to your training:

1. Morning resting heart rate.

2. Being able to maintain momentum in your stride/contact with ground.

Advance your training so that both are being challenged, but not overwhelmed and deteriorating. Everything you do in training points to being able to maintain speed momentum at faster and faster paces. Those moments when your feet touch the ground. Be an artist.

Your coach is a tool. With a 5K PR of nearly 20 minutes your recovery runs should be in the range of 7:50-8:15 pace.

This sounds a lot like one of my coaches- he was so hung up on having us run 7:45 pace for every easy run this season even though our 5k prs are mid 19's. Nobody pr'ed in races because the "easy" runs never allowed us to recover from workouts. As the season went on, the pace never got easier. I would STRONGLY advise you to just run whatever feels easy for your runs, it's better to go a little too slow than too fast imo. Going too fast on every easy run will dig you into a hole that is hard to escape.

By estimating your max V02 max pace (around a speed you can maintain for 10 minutes) you can calculate what pace you should be running.

I guess I fall in between your coach and the majority here. Here's what I would recommend over the winter:

Regular longer training runs of 75% - 65% VO2 Max= 7:40 - 8:15 Pace

Aerobic Threshold runs around 7:10 - 7:30 for runs of 30-50 minutes

Lactate Threshold runs of 6:50 - 7:00 for 25 minutes

Regular longer training runs 3 times per 10 day cycle

Aerobic Threshold runs 4 times per 10 day cycle

Lactate Threshold 1 time per 10 day cycle

1 hard workout or race per 10 day cycle

1 recovery slow run per 10 day cycle

Slower than 8:15-20 and you're primarily in a fat burn mode. Unless it's a recovery day after a workout a slower pace than this will not be very helpful.

Forgot to mention, you increase these paces as you get quicker. If you do this cycle, you will get quicker!

LoLLLL wrote:

HardLoper wrote:

Your post resembles Runners World logic more than any other in the thread. Run less run fasterâ„¢, baby!

Exactly, LOL.

A HS freshman SHOULD run less and faster in this situation. His coach wants him to top out at 25 mpw. OP should run that 25 miles....FAST!

Absolutes are absolutely dangerous for training :).

Variety is the spice of life, and it's even more important for your running.

Every day you run, you need to ask what the purpose of that run or workout is.

Does your coach even know what an easy day is supposed to do? It's to allow you to continue to develop aerobic fitness while also recovering from harder efforts. You don't need to run fast to do this. In fact, the idea is that you run ONLY just fast enough to gain adaptations in your capillaries, mitochondria etc. which can be going as slow as @60% of max heartrate . There's other ways of calculating pace like % VO2 max etc but for beginners it's easier to just take your hr periodically. Thus, you are going by effort. If you must adhere to a pace, it's usually slower than 2min/mile slower than your 5k pace. Daniels vdot tables are a rough guide but they don't always work for beginners with little aerobic endurance. Beginners and young runners are going to benefit from almost any slow pace. And, the mechanical stresses are generally less.

Some world class runners do some easy runs over 4 minutes slower than their 5k pace. Just sayin'

Of course, if you ONLY did easy runs every day of the week you won't progress as well either. I agree with the posters who say mix in a day where you work on 6x 50-80m full recovery sprints. Doing a threshhold workout etc like some of the others here say is important too.

As a freshman, especially assuming you are still growing, I would increase your mileage still quite slowly. You are just getting into running and averaging 25 mpw, right? Try to slowly get up to 30-35 this spring. Then 40-45 before xc next season. You may not run quite as fast in your races this spring as if you built up faster to 50mpw or so, but you need to think long term, and you could get burnt out or injured. It's not worth the risk.

ManOverboard wrote:

LoLLLL wrote:

Exactly, LOL.

A HS freshman SHOULD run less and faster in this situation. His coach wants him to top out at 25 mpw. OP should run that 25 miles....FAST!

No, there's nothing unique about his situation. He should run more (45 mpw) mostly at an easy pace.

Good post. Variety from slow recovery to fast repetitions or sprints throughout the base phase is very good not just to maintain your speed among with the endless list which could be said, but one thing is to frequently train with good range of movements, to break the tightness (hips, tendons, ligaments..) which is created by the basic mileage. Monotonous training, whether it´s done at slow, fast or something in between pace makes your body stiff and some parts of your muscles are underused while other parts are overused. If you also forget the strength training, you are developing tightness and muscular imbalances at higher rate. But if you just want to basically just run mileage without that much of variation of pace, and are not interested about strength training, doing a lot of your running on hilly routes may keep you healthy.

Running your easy days will never help you run faster, but it sure can hurt you, and hurt you good. More careers have been wrecked running easy runs too fast than any other cause.

[quote]sufferin succotash wrote:

Absolutes are absolutely dangerous for training :).

True, Only the Sith deal in absolutes.

Where do you live? And how in the world did you win a state title with an 11:12 in the 3200m? Last year at my state meet the winner of the 3200m won in 10:24. 11:12 would have earned you 17th place on a good day.

????????????

At your ability level, running 7:00 pace on easy days is insane. When I was in top shape in college racing 1:10 for the half marathon which is probably about equal to a 15 minute 5K I would do my easy days at 7:30 pace. You need hard days and easy days in order to improve as a runner. If you are just breaking 20 minutes for the 5K you are racing at about 6:30 pace. It is okay to run 7:00 pace on hard days for a 4 - 6 mile workout but on your easy days you probably should be running closer to 8:00/mile

I'm late to the game, but since this is base mileage it can be a little faster than your in-season 'easy pace'... I do think that 7:30-8:00 pace is a little too slow. I think you could handle 7:15-7:30 pace and still increase your mileage since you aren't doing workouts in the winter.

The mileage is what is more important for you, 15-20 mpw isn't very high, so any increase will help. Just don't jump all the way up to 50 too fast or you have risk of injury.

Hot Takes wrote:

I'm late to the game, but since this is base mileage it can be a little faster than your in-season 'easy pace'... I do think that 7:30-8:00 pace is a little too slow. I think you could handle 7:15-7:30 pace and still increase your mileage since you aren't doing workouts in the winter.

The mileage is what is more important for you, 15-20 mpw isn't very high, so any increase will help. Just don't jump all the way up to 50 too fast or you have risk of injury.

Too fast. When I was consistently 16:30-17:00 for 5K, 7:30 was fine for base mileage, finishing with a few at 7:15 for 40-50 miles/week overall. A 19:xx kid should be over 8:00 for everything except workouts and build gradually to what ever they can handle while hitting their workouts.

This whole thread is full of Sh*&*$T.

When I ran low 15:00 in High School I was running about 65mpw and ran 6:00-6:05 pace every day for 6-7 mile runs. With two workouts a week.

You want to get better focus on gradually increasing the pace of your daily runs. DESTROYING workouts and jogging 8-9 min miles in between is absolutely worthless.

Better off keeping your daily runs strong and steady and getting solid workouts in without going to the well on said workouts. Get them in plenty of rest, gradually increase.

Jerry Maguire wrote:

This whole thread is full of Sh*&*$T.

When I ran low 15:00 in High School I was running about 65mpw and ran 6:00-6:05 pace every day for 6-7 mile runs. With two workouts a week.

You want to get better focus on gradually increasing the pace of your daily runs. DESTROYING workouts and jogging 8-9 min miles in between is absolutely worthless.

Better off keeping your daily runs strong and steady and getting solid workouts in without going to the well on said workouts. Get them in plenty of rest, gradually increase.

Your easy runs were 5k pace * 1.25 and the pace OP wanted to run was even faster than that, around 5k pace * 1.2, and the pace his coach wanted him to run was no slower than 5k pace * 1.07, which is insane. Everyone advising him to run the pace he wants and ignore his coach was correct.

Anyway, your high school coach over trained you so that whichever 5-7 guys survived to field an XC team, you all could achieve your little high school accolades. You've now got a total misconception about proper training. While some of the best athletes do drill their easy runs at a steady clip, some world class athletes totally jog them. Jogging is not worthless.

Do the math wrote:

[quote]Jerry Maguire wrote:

This whole thread is full of Sh*&*$T.

When I ran low 15:00 in High School I was running about 65mpw and ran 6:00-6:05 pace every day for 6-7 mile runs. With two workouts a week.

You want to get better focus on gradually increasing the pace of your daily runs. DESTROYING workouts and jogging 8-9 min miles in between is absolutely worthless.

Better off keeping your daily runs strong and steady and getting solid workouts in without going to the well on said workouts. Get them in plenty of rest, gradually increase.

Your easy runs were 5k pace * 1.25 and the pace OP wanted to run was even faster than that, around 5k pace * 1.2, and the pace his coach wanted him to run was no slower than 5k pace * 1.07, which is insane. Everyone advising him to run the pace he wants and ignore his coach was correct.

Anyway, your high school coach over trained you so that whichever 5-7 guys survived to field an XC team, you all could achieve your little high school accolades. You've now got a total misconception about proper training. While some of the best athletes do drill their easy runs at a steady clip, some world class athletes totally jog them. Jogging is not worthless.[/quote

Same format when I ran in college. Want to tell John McDonnell at Arkansas he was overtraining the entire team for decades with his misconception about proper training? pretty much 5:20-6:00 pace during the week 8 -10 milers. Those 12.5 - 14 mile bridge runs.... "keep it relaxed kid" = 5:30 pace.