Does an elite 6 min/mile easy pace feels just like a hobby jogger 8 min pace?

A mother one wrote:

takk for the moose wrote:

35% of MP? Wow that's pretty fast.

Idiot. 35% of mp would be extremely slow. If you run 5 minutes miles for the marathon, your marathon pace is 12mph. 35% of that is only about 4mph, which is very slow.

Moran. 35% of mp would be extremely fast. If you run 12mph for the marathon, your marathon pace is 5 minutes per mile. 35% of that is 1.75 minutes per mile, which is very fast.

The discussion about talking on a run is quite silly and has no bearing on the original question. Tom Fleming ran a 140mpw almost all 6 and under. I trained with him frequently and did at least 90 of my 110mpw under 6. Of course you could talk even when you hunkered down to a 5.20 pace. That does not mean it was easy try running everything under 6. Many top Us marathoners today are to cute with their trainind-you need to harden everyday with steady running. Check out the depth of marathon running from th mid 70's to mid 80's -far better than today. Runners World and their gibberish created the decline.

easy not steady wrote:

Jack Daniels' recommended easy pace for a 2:13 marathoner (5:05 pace) is exactly one min/mile slower (6:05 pace). So yeah, 6 flat pace would feel easy for him.

Sure, if you're totally rested and fit, then it would be easy, but that's not how training works. If you're rested, then it's time to go hard. Easy is for recovering. If you aren't recovered yet from a tough workout, then JD's easy pace won't really be easy. I've never met a runner who didn't do a significant chunk of mileage slower than their JD "easy" pace.

AdrianCh wrote:

oooooh boy wrote:

Your friend is an idiot

Yea that's what I told him. Surely a pace a whole minute slower than his marathon pace must feel pedestrian

Solid friendships are built upon the bedrock of calling each other idiots.

Almosrsbs wrote:

Flannigan and Cragg sure were talking a lot at marathon pace in the trials.. Most people would be gasping for air..

Not many people can run at the pace they were running...

I ran a few marathons and in some carried on a conversation for parts of them.

cerutty wrote:

The discussion about talking on a run is quite silly and has no bearing on the original question. Of course you could talk even when you hunkered down to a 5.20 pace. That does not mean it was easy try running everything under 6.

"You" should be able to run about 2:00:25 for a marathon if "you" can carry on a conversation at 5:20. Assuming you never broke 2:02:00, you were over training and missed your potential.

The people that run everything under 6:00 by definition think running 6:00 is easy.

AdrianCh wrote:

So I have been arguing with a friend.

We have been talking about a marathoner that can do a 2:13 marathon. He does his general not workout runs at around 6 min pace.

I say he feels just like we feel at around 7:30 min pace, while my friend says 6 min pace can never feel easy and that they guy is training medium hard all the time (about 120 mpw)

So who is right? Can you run 6 min pace and still tell jokes all day long?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I used to run a low 2:20's Marathon, sub-31:00 10K in X-C and top 100 NCAA XC......Sub 6:00 (on the roads) came easy but once you did it for say, over 10 miles, it became a good work out. A fit sub 25:00 5 Mile XC / Sub 31:00 10K XC guy should have no problem holding a conversation for an hour while running 6:00 miles for at least an hour. When I used to run a succession of 6 minute miles, my problem was that I progressed right through 6:00 down to 4:45 by the end.....no jokes there!

Now at close to 60, I have to have a good day to average 7:30 for 5 miles while feeling good.

thanks for the post

and these moron are never going to listen to someone who actually ran - instead they believe anyone with the letters PHd after there name. The science has ruined so many as they try to run prescribed paces for their long runs, tempo runs, etc. They just don't get it and probably never will.

Letsrun readers:

Science does not lead - it follows the pioneers and then try to tell you why it worked...the science is not out there discovering what works - the runners are...at least the runners of old are - cause we weren't afraid to try things out. vs being told how to train

I love it when the greats come on here and gets told they are/ were wrong.

Laughable

lol 8min is hobby jogger pace? I think it depends on your training plan. I won the girls' 1,500m at my state championship several years ago and all of my runs were at 8min+ pace. My converted mile time was < 4:50. I killed my workouts and recovered on recovery days. I don't doubt I could've run my runs at 7 minute pace, but for what? I never got injured and won states off 35mpw. I would bet a lot of people push their recovery days too hard.

I can say that 7 min miles felt a lot easier in college or even high school than 9 min miles do now.

For my body, fitness built upon fitness - I felt better, running faster, going longer.

Now I run four times a week and even 9 min miles aren't easy like 7 min miles were.

Yup, it is proportional. When I could run 25's for 5M, most of my runs were at 6:00 or under... now 20 years later, I train at 6:30 and race in the high 27's. I'm sure it is slightly different for everyone but it seems to be a general rule.

easy not steady wrote:

AdrianCh wrote:

I meant proportionally

So for example if said hobby-jogger ran his easy pace at 35% of his marathon pace, would it feel the same if the elite marathoner ran 35% of his marathon pace, even if that was 6 min miles?

Paces are not strictly proportional, but it's not very significant. Your easy pace gets slower compared to your race pace the faster you are.

Again you can use Jack Daniels to visualize this. His easy pace for a slow runner (VDOT 40) is about 116% of the marathon pace (8:46) while for a fast runner (VDOT 80) easy pace is about 120% of marathon pace (4:52).

... and all of this is based loosely on how hard your heart is working at any given pace.

That is why an elite's easy pace feels roughly the same as a slower runner's easy pace. Olympian and former American Marathon Record Holder Kenny Moore discussed this in terms that hard efforts also feel the same even though the paces are vastly different for elites and slower runners.

Malmo was a bit faster than 2:13, here is a sample of his morning 8.5 milers from 1985--all of the "easy" running is materially faster than 6:00/mile

800 dude wrote:

easy not steady wrote:

Jack Daniels' recommended easy pace for a 2:13 marathoner (5:05 pace) is exactly one min/mile slower (6:05 pace). So yeah, 6 flat pace would feel easy for him.

Sure, if you're totally rested and fit, then it would be easy, but that's not how training works. If you're rested, then it's time to go hard. Easy is for recovering. If you aren't recovered yet from a tough workout, then JD's easy pace won't really be easy. I've never met a runner who didn't do a significant chunk of mileage slower than their JD "easy" pace.

JD's original easy pace was about 15s/mile faster than the paces above, that is, 5:50 for a 2:13 marathoner.

Sorry, but you're just plain wrong in that 6 flat is a "steady" pace for a 2:13 marathoner. Sure, it's not recovery pace, but no one has claimed that.

As a 2:17 marathoner I will say once I'm warmed up after a few miles 6:15 to 6:30 pace is usually that sweet spot I like for my easy days. That is comfortable. I can go a little slower and I have buddies who are faster than me who take their easy days slower than 7min pace. But to me that pace feels uncomfortable and I feel out of sync running that slow.

Look at Mo Farahs long runs at 5:45 pace where he is fukering with snapchat, gopro and facebook. Doesnt leave an impression of any stress on him

I used to do easy runs at 6:20 pace. I'm now horribly out of shape and do easy runs (who am I kidding, all of my running) at 8:30 pace. 8:30 pace feels harder.

I can always tell when the OP is under 35 years of age. they start every sentence with "so"

oh please wrote:

Awhile back Renato Canova was talking about Caleb Ndiku and he said something to the affect that there was literally no benefit for him to run at slower than 4:00/km, not even for recovery. I think that is around 6:25/mi.

Considering Ndiku is a higher quality runner than your average 2:13 marathoner, I might infer that 6 min pace is easy/recovery for his level. For the 2:13 guy, it's probably "easy feeling" but is slightly faster than recovery.

Run Caleb Ndiku