How important is "moderate" pace in HM and Marathon training?

Another week from January, to illustrate the variety of paces:

M: 4x5k @ 5:27/mi, 1k recovery @ 6:26 pace, 15k @ 5:20/mi

T: Easy

W: Easy

Th: 2*10x400m in 61 avg

F: 2 x 60 min moderate sessions

Sat: 20k @ 5:04/mi

Sun: 90 min moderate

5:20 pace is neither easy nor marathon pace nor, apparently, moderate pace for Moses Mosop. Considering that the exact pace is given, I'm guessing moderate is slower than 5:20 for Mosop.

Thursday is a mile pace session.

Saturday is roughly a marathon pace session, considering this is January. I'm assuming his fitness has a ways to go.

Mosop appears to have 7 training paces:

1) Easy

2) Moderate

3) 5:20 pace (whatever that is)

4) Marathon

5) Threshold

6) VO2max

7) Mile

It's an unnecessary term. It's either marathon pace for marathon training, or half marathon pace for half marathon training.

I only pay attention 4 or 5 paces:

1 mile pace

5k pAce

10k pace

Tempo

Easy

Tempo and easy have so many variations . There is no need for moderate, etc

This discussion interests me as well. Moderate pace runs were much more popular back in the day. I think we've moved to more polarized training and fallen victim to the hard/easy myth. Folloeing this thread to see what others have to say.

For me, I run a hard workout, take an easy recovery day the next day, and if the third day is not a non-workout day, that run the third day becomes just a little longer than the easy recovery run the day prior. It is also noticeably faster. This would be what I would classify as moderate running.

As a Daniels guy, I almost never run moderate pace. It happens sometimes as part of a progression run or occasionally when I'm just over a medium long run; but it rarely happens by design.

Not fast enough to result in LT adaptation; faster than necessary to obtains the general muscle, connective tissue d aerobic benefits that you get from easy runs. Definitely a Daniels concept regurgitation, butnit also makes sense to me.

Only upside, in my world view, is the general psychological benefit of just crushing some work.

Smoove wrote:

As a Daniels guy, I almost never run moderate pace. It happens sometimes as part of a progression run or occasionally when I'm just over a medium long run; but it rarely happens by design.

Not fast enough to result in LT adaptation; faster than necessary to obtains the general muscle, connective tissue d aerobic benefits that you get from easy runs. Definitely a Daniels concept regurgitation, butnit also makes sense to me.

Only upside, in my world view, is the general psychological benefit of just crushing some work.

Yeah that's pretty much my perspective.

Interestingly, in the Kwemoi training thread, Renato prescribes easy days of 70-80% of 5k pace. 80% of 5k would qualify as moderate, I think. Further, Renato doesn't let Kwemoi go slower than 4:00/km for any recovery run because he feels anything slower works against recovery due to longer ground contact, poor form, etc.

That's similar to Daniels' prescribed E pace, but my experience (and common sense) says that I feel more recovered running 7:30 pace than 6:15 on easy days. I feel like I get more out of my quality sessions if they are the focus of my week, not cruising fast times on easy days.

Normally I do a track interval or rep session, a tempo session, and a long run each week when focused. To the extent I run at a moderate pace,It's usually in lieu of a tempo effort, not on top of it.

But I'm also a littlebit older at 45. I think younger guys can get away with an additional quality or semi-quality day on top of that. I don't advocate moderate running; but I think it's easier for younger runners to pull off from time to time (like everything else - those lucky SOBs).

Smoove wrote:

I don't advocate moderate running; but I think it's easier for younger runners to pull off from time to time (like everything else - those lucky SOBs).

My targeted training paces include nothing between LT and "easy." My recovery runs are very slow. For long runs I try to average on the faster side of "easy," maybe MP plus 30-40 seconds per mile.

But I have been intrigued by the training being posted by a 48-year-old on the weekly training and racing thread. He trains almost exclusively at what I would label as a "moderate pace"... very close to MP, on average. Will be interesting to see how that approach translates to race-day performance.

Smoove wrote:

As a Daniels guy, I almost never run moderate pace.

As a Daniels guy you have to run pretty moderate almost every run. Daniels easy pace for a 30' 10k runner is 6:04 - 6:29ish. For a 35' 10k runner 7:04 - 7:29. That is exactly in Canova's moderate range (80+ % of MP).

There is a little big of chicken and egg here.

You can run faster (so hitting a moderate pace) on your distance days if you are really fit or not too stressed by your workout days. You can also run faster on your distance days if you tap into the well at the expense of your recovery and performance on workout days. But in these two situations, faster either does or does not mean "harder"

The frequency of moderate days in elites' training is more likely a product of situation A, where there fitness is at a point where they can still be recovering after runs at a higher speed. In this case, the word moderate is less about effort and more about absolute speed.

So while Mosop may be running moderately often, he is still running at an effort that is not taxing enough to hamper recovery.

Less developed runners don't have the aerobic capacity and power to be able to hit a faster speed at lower efforts.

While you might be overthinking something that's very trivial and irrelevant, I'm going to chime in anyway.

I get my moderate pace cues from the recent work of Steven Siegler - that is, moderate pace (that area between zones 2 and 3) does more damage than good. There is / should not be, any moderate pace to replicate training by the pros.

Now, what the pro pros probably mean by distinguishing between easy and moderate in their training, is most likely zones 1 and 2 in their heart rate. Some people call this zone 1 and 2. Some people call this recovery and easy. Some people call this easy and moderate.

Uhm. Then please define your zones. Nobody knows what you exactly mean with zone 1 and 2. Moderate in a sense of Canova for sure is defined. It's roughly (MP x 1,1 - 1,2), so if your MP is 6'/mile it is like 6:36 - 7:12 pace. And most important: How relevant is this zone?

I run Daniels programs as well and find that my M pace work is a moderate pace, unless being held for a lot of miles, at which point it starts to feel more like a tempo effort.

I run an M run in place of a regular long run every 2-3 weeks (a bit less mileage than a long run). If I run them a bit slow, I recover well and can still get in an interval and tempo in the same week. If I run them a bit fast, it drains me and I'll have to push the interval workout back and skip that week's tempo.

I think that they are some excellent training stimulus for high quality aerobic work alternative to a tempo maybe 4-10 weeks out from racing. If nothing else, they're a fun change of routine which I think is good for the mind and body.

Daniels advocates between 65 and 80% of max heart rate for easy days. For me that would be in the 6:40 to 7:05 range. I tend toward the slower end of that range with most runs averaging about 7:00, but some miles dipping to that 6:40 range. So your point is taken. But it is all conversational pace, which is really how I test my effort. My impression from the OP was that we were talking about a more strenuous effort than conversational pace.

I am a Daniel's disciple too, but for some reason, I can't come close to his prescribed E pace. It doesn't feel easy at all, more like moderate.

For my current fitness and associated VDOT, I should be running 8:00 for my easy runs, but most of my easy runs are leaning towards 8:30 or even 9:00.

Btw, I deem myself more of a strength runner.(p,b 5K:19:15 10k 39:38,half 1:26) Don't know if that has anything to do with it.

Smoove wrote:

Daniels advocates between 65 and 80% of max heart rate for easy days. For me that would be in the 6:40 to 7:05 range. I tend toward the slower end of that range with most runs averaging about 7:00, but some miles dipping to that 6:40 range. So your point is taken. But it is all conversational pace, which is really how I test my effort. My impression from the OP was that we were talking about a more strenuous effort than conversational pace.

I saw this thread after I got back in from my run yesterday. I'm going to suggest that there's an additional complicating factor, which is that certain % of max HR become notably easier as you warm into a run.

I normally start every easy run with a couple of miles at 70-75% of max HR. Any more than that feels as though I'm pushing, working, straining slightly. My breathing rate is, or should be, an easy 3/3.

Yesterday, in the third mile of a planned 4 mile easy run, I allowed my HR to rise to 85% of max. (For me, that was a HR of 160-161; my max is 189.) It still felt easy, without strain--or at least by that part of the run it did. 85% is my marathon pace HR. 161 is right on the cusp of a different energy zone where I could no longer comfortably sustain a 3/3 breathing rate--and where I would normally change over to 3/2.

Yesterday, an 85% HR (160) felt very much like what Jack Kellogg calls a high-end aerobic pace. It was the maximum pace I could sustain without ANY buildup of strain--which is to say, with no appreciable drip-drip buildup of lactic acid.

I would call it a moderate pace, not an easy pace. I could certainly have slowed to, say, a pace of 77-78%, and it would have felt "easier." But 85% wasn't hard. It was "brisk." Back in the day, I believe that many runners wrote "brisk" in their logs when they ran that sort of pace.

By contrast, the zone between 85% and 89%, for me, is where long tempo runs linger. It's sub-LT, but not by much. It requires that I push and, importantly, that I accept as a given a palpably higher steady-state lactate level. "Steady state" is a term that McMillan uses for those runs.

So, how about this: moderate = brisk = marathon pace = high-end aerobic

Above that = half-marathon pace = steady-state = push

And then: (I'm talking % of max HR)

89-91%: (classic) tempo run: 20 minutes = LT / lactate threshold = repeat miles for half-marathon training

92-93%: 10K pace = CV (critical velocity) = repeat miles for 10K training

Steven Seiler.

Live to run wrote:

I get my moderate pace cues from the recent work of Steven Siegler

Smoove wrote:

My impression from the OP was that we were talking about a more strenuous effort than conversational pace.

Yes we are. Easy pace is the one spot I ignore Daniels and listen to (I can't believe I'm going to admit this) the brojos. I often start runs at 7:45 and finish around 7:10, because that's just what feels good. Daniels would have me at 6:20 on easy days, and I believe my quality sessions would suffer.

The one caveat is during base phase, before quality sessions have really started. I see no issue with letting loose on some of those days.