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

That pace is fast enough to improve all the markers that we're so obsessed over as runners. LT, V02 max included...

But it improves them through the back door so to speak. It's not the quickest route to fitness but stretched out over time can produce some really outstanding results. Poster HRE is a good example of that.

The benefit of moderate pace running is its sustainability. It can be juggled with higher mileage and short speed sessions without risking burnout. It also allows you to listen to your body instead of trying to run a pre-determined pace. I would argue it makes you a better racer too once you start feeling your runs instead of letting your watch tell you how fast you ought to be going.

Once you get really fit off this type of training, your daily pace begins to drop effortlessly. You're not destroying yourself in workouts and spending the next few days trying to recover. Too many runners in my opinion are racing their workouts.

I did not grow up in the 60s and 70s but the more I read about their training the more I felt there was something we've been leaving on the table by becoming so Daniels-centered in our thinking.

So centered, in fact, that many of us will probably read this and think the answer is to run marathon pace every day but it's not. We'll hold ourselves to 5:30 pace do or die but that's missing the point. You have to let the pace come to you, that's the true art of tempo running and I know malmo has said that quite often on these boards.

This is so well-stated. Doing what I have done, I could not agree more. You have to listen to your body, and "feel" your training and racing.

Excellent post. Here's something along this line that's turned up here on other threads:

http://www.coacheseducation.com/xc/jack_farrell_july_00.php

Scorpion_runner wrote:

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

What a bad post.

You don't "pay attention to" marathon pace, then?

Been thar wrote:

Scorpion_runner wrote:

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

What a bad post.

You don't "pay attention to" marathon pace, then?

You are slicing hairs. Tempo / moderate / threshold pace and their vague terms are the core subjects of this thread.

I ran hard/moderate everyday for the first few years when i took up running in my late 20s. Made some good gains but eventually plateaued. With a little speed work and eventually full-blown Daniels I was able to shave 30+ minutes off my marathon PR. I enjoy the mix of paces and being able to run easy, by feel, on most days. I almost never run at a moderate or what I call "junk zone" pace anymore. By taking it easy on the easy days I'm able to run a lot harder on the hard days, which, in my opinion, is where the magic happens.

Dgbkotdc wrote:

I did not grow up in the 60s and 70s but the more I read about their training the more I felt there was something we've been leaving on the table by becoming so Daniels-centered in our thinking.

Grete Waitz ran "moderate" for the bulk of her aerobic sessions (3'45-3'30 range for her):

And so did Hicham El Guerrouj, more recently:

And so did also Paula Radcliffe (3'40-3'20 range for her):

"Moderate" correspond to a range of paces that is physiologically just below one's Aerobic Threshold (AeT). And the AeT typically corresponds to an intensity that can be sustained in a competition that last ~4h.

The 3'20/km higher limit for Paula's moderate pace range corresponds to her Aerobic Threshold pace (with a WR pace of 3'13/km for the marathon).

For El Guerrouj, the 3'10-2'50 range is reported, but I guess he ran most of his AE runs in the 3'10-3'00 range (3'00 probably corresponded to his AeT pace), just picking the pace a bit at the end of these runs.

The main error with "moderate" running is indeed to run too fast, ie spending too much time ABOVE one's AeT. This is the main mistake many many runners are doing.

Norway-based American physiologist Stephen Seiler has indeed established that ~80% of one's total weekly running should be run BELOW one's AeT, and only 20% above (which includes all higher paces) for best results. See this book for more details about this "80/20 rule":

How to determine to which pace or HR one's AeT corresponds? Not an easy task... Maybe the most simple way is using Maffetone's formula that derive a HR that is for many a relatively close lower bound to the AeT_HR:

It seems however that the following modified formula: 170 – 0.65xage + corrections (see link above), works better tough.

Angryjohnny wrote:

I ran hard/moderate everyday for the first few years when i took up running in my late 20s. Made some good gains but eventually plateaued. With a little speed work and eventually full-blown Daniels I was able to shave 30+ minutes off my marathon PR. I enjoy the mix of paces and being able to run easy, by feel, on most days. I almost never run at a moderate or what I call "junk zone" pace anymore. By taking it easy on the easy days I'm able to run a lot harder on the hard days, which, in my opinion, is where the magic happens.

There is no such thing as a junk zone. Your improvement was to be expected. Build a huge base. Sharpen with some speed work. And go back to your bread and butter moderate pace running. That in a nutshell is periodization. Daniels has you doing speedwork year-round and easy pace is never "easy"

When I was in college I ran in the "moderate" zone quite a bit. My best 10K was in the 33s, and I did a lot of runs around 6 minute pace. I had periods where I ran around 60 mpw, but over the course of a year I averaged more like 50 with tapering and down week. I remember a few years in a row where my yearly mileage was in the 2600-2700 range.

I planned to increase my mileage for my senior year, and it was a disaster. I would have a few good weeks, then would be fried for a while. I rest and come back and then went through the same thing again. Looking back, I possibly could have handled the increase in mileage if I slowed down from the "moderate" range.

MB8020 wrote:

"Moderate" correspond to a range of paces that is physiologically just below one's Aerobic Threshold (AeT).

That's not moderate. That's racing in every aerobic event. For the sake of argument, I'll clarify and say the event is about 10 or more minutes in duration.

MB8020 wrote:

And the AeT typically corresponds to an intensity that can be sustained in a competition that last ~4h.

This is much closer to my definition of moderate. Again though, the general goal is to feel some fatigue at the end, but nowhere near a race pace at any given aerobic distance.

might mean anything wrote:

When I was in college I ran in the "moderate" zone quite a bit. My best 10K was in the 33s, and I did a lot of runs around 6 minute pace. I had periods where I ran around 60 mpw, but over the course of a year I averaged more like 50 with tapering and down week. I remember a few years in a row where my yearly mileage was in the 2600-2700 range.

I planned to increase my mileage for my senior year, and it was a disaster. I would have a few good weeks, then would be fried for a while. I rest and come back and then went through the same thing again. Looking back, I possibly could have handled the increase in mileage if I slowed down from the "moderate" range.

You were getting fried and couldn't handle the mileage because you were also trying to run workouts. The idea being advocated here is not to speed up on your easy days. It's too get rid of anaerobic speed endurance work for an extended period, build mileage, and focus on moderate pace allowing the pace to come to you.

I grew up running in the 70's and 80's. I agree that moderate based running/training or run by feel is the most sustainable approach, or "train don't strain, or "finish feeling pleasantly tired" as with Lydiard. Whether its HRE talking about the fellow in another post who only does slow runs, yet races really well, or mostly moderate runs, its about letting the body adapt over the long term and not trying to force the pace everyday. Sometimes add a dash of faster running, but not at the expense of long term sustainability running, that helps you improve over the long term. Up to 84 it seemed it mostly moderate miles, then we went to faster is better, ie Coe.

pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

MB8020 wrote:

"Moderate" correspond to a range of paces that is physiologically just below one's Aerobic Threshold (AeT).

That's not moderate. That's racing in every aerobic event. For the sake of argument, I'll clarify and say the event is about 10 or more minutes in duration.

You confuse AErobic Threshold (AeT) with ANAerobic Threshold (AnT).

Physiologically, AeT is the intensity above which your blood lactate ([La]) will start to rise above base level (below AeT your [La] is constant with speed/intensity, typically around ~1.0-1.5 mmol/L). In terms of duration of effort, as I mentioned it correspond to an intensity you can hold for ~4h in competition.

The AnT can be safely defined as the MLSS (Maximum Lactate Steady State), the intensity above which the [La] is not constant with time but increases even if the intensity is maintained fixed. In terms of duration of effort, as I mentioned it correspond to an intensity you can hold for ~1h in competition.

Now you can re-read my previous post ;-)

I forgot a last very important (and very recent) example of a runner who has run "only moderate" for some time with very good results: Eliud Kipchoge. He ran only "moderate" with ~8-9 months in 2012 up to spring 2013 during his conversion from track to marathon. Here is a quote from Renato Canova about this:

"

As we discussed several times, we need to use different approaches with athletes STARTING with Marathon directly, and with athletes coming from a long career on track.

[...]

In the second case, the athletes (Eliud Kipchoge, Bernard Koech and Bernard Kipyego) need only to maintain a high level of speed, but have to work more in order to increase their endurance.

For these type of athletes, the first step is to adapt their body to stay on the legs for long time, and their mind to remain focused longer than 2 hours.

[...]

About Eliud, he had a very long career on track, at top level. He won WCh in 2003, every year was able running under 7'30" in 3000m, and had an engine working with fuel "super", using essentially glycogen (also at Marathon speed). After running 27'11" only in Kenyan Trials in Eugene 2011, he decided to move to Marathon, and Patrick told him he needed a long period of translation, for changing the system of fuelling. Eliud started to run high volume of kms, never slow, but never very fast, and after 3 and half months ran his first HM in 59'25". Only after the full winter 2011/2012 he ran his first Marathon, in Hamburg, immediately in 2:05'.

"

OP:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&thread=6058683&id=6063772#6063772

And, of course, there was also the famous case of Mark Allen, who under the guidance of Phil Maffetone went from 8:30/mile to 5:15/mile at the same HR corresponding to his AeT, by running only "moderate" for a bit more than a year.

Okay-

Once again, we have a million different definitions and everyone talking past each other. Only want to mention this to help jewbacca out: otherwise I'd leave this alone.

as percentage of vvo2max

(With vvo2max pace per mile = exhaustive 3200m divided by 2)

Easy: 65-70%

LT-1: 75%

LT-2: 80%

True Lactate threshold = 83-88%

10k pace: 90-92%

5k pace: 97%

3k pace: 102%

1500m pace: 112%

Okay. If you follow original Daniels, there's a hole between easy pace and tempo pace, from 75% of vvo2max and 83% of vvo2max. This is, from my estimation, where an "intermediate" or "moderate" run is. The use of it would be in progression runs or during base when transitioning to faster tempo work.

Daniels has since come up with "Marathon" pace, which fills this gap. Joe Vigil, in his book, talks about doing these runs for 3k and 5k specialist (12.4km and 20km in distance respectively). If you want the most bang for your buck, you do Daniels, but if your an elite runner trying to train the entire energy continuum, then they are necessary. I have been using them successfully with my high schoolers and I alternate doing these runs with true tempo runs

MB8020 wrote:

And, of course, there was also the famous case of Mark Allen, who under the guidance of Phil Maffetone went from 8:30/mile to 5:15/mile at the same HR corresponding to his AeT, by running only "moderate" for a bit more than a year.

Running below AeT is usually called "easy" (eg Daniels E pace or easy pace based on McMillan calculator) and paces between AeT and AnT are considered "moderate".

Mark Allen is a case of massive volume at "easy" pace (30-40 hours per week across the events of the triathlon) rather than moderate pace.

There is no "aerobic threshold". It's bogus science promoted by Maffetone.

And regarding the "anaerobic threshold" there are more than 30 definitions for that.

Anyone who uses physiology to design a training program is either a fraudster or at best has no understanding of actual science.

focus on results wrote:

There is no "aerobic threshold".

Yes, there is.

When you start running very very slowly, and progressively increases your speed, your blood lactate ([La]) will remains the same ("base level"). That may be between 8 and 12 km/h for you. Then, there is a point where the next increase of speed comes with a first increases of [La] above base level. This clearly defines the aerobic threshold.