I'm tired of being a slow jogger and don't know how to fix

HRE wrote:

forget the above post wrote:

Try the higher mileage again

This. Just because you got hurt once at 60 mpw doesn't mean you always will. Work up to it gradually. Don't do any harder running until you're comfortable at 60. Take your time but get there.

This. Ignore the advice above about doing three quality workouts per week. Do all easy stuff, long run, and maybe some tempos and get to 60mpw. After you are at 60mpw for a while, start adding interval workouts.

Intervals won't work wrote:

HRE wrote:

This. Just because you got hurt once at 60 mpw doesn't mean you always will. Work up to it gradually. Don't do any harder running until you're comfortable at 60. Take your time but get there.

This. Ignore the advice above about doing three quality workouts per week. Do all easy stuff, long run, and maybe some tempos and get to 60mpw. After you are at 60mpw for a while, start adding interval workouts.

I wanna get back up to 60mpw but time restraints have me hovering around 40 to 45mpw for now.

Slow jogger wrote:[/b

I wanna get back up to 60mpw but time restraints have me hovering around 40 to 45mpw for now.

Time is one of the things most of us need to work out if we're going to try to run a lot. A jump from 40 or so to 60 is about three miles a day. Are you really so tight with time that you don't have another 25 minutes a day? You can't extend what you do on weekends or days off somewhat dramatically? If you can't, you can't and good luck. I will tell you that the biggest improvement I made came when I got from doing what you are now to the 60-70 range.

HRE wrote:

Slow jogger wrote:[/b

I wanna get back up to 60mpw but time restraints have me hovering around 40 to 45mpw for now.

Time is one of the things most of us need to work out if we're going to try to run a lot. A jump from 40 or so to 60 is about three miles a day. Are you really so tight with time that you don't have another 25 minutes a day? You can't extend what you do on weekends or days off somewhat dramatically? If you can't, you can't and good luck. I will tell you that the biggest improvement I made came when I got from doing what you are now to the 60-70 range.

When i did manage 60mpw for the 7 weeks i was up that high i could feel a difference in strength for sure despite it being in the peak of summer. I was running 7days a week then taking a day off when i needed. (I live in the south and it's plenty hot for most of the year) , but I know what you guys mean by more miles will help.

What makes it difficult about adding more miles is my average easy pace is a very sad 9 min pace. So that's nearly another 3 hours for 20 miles a week I'm running on top of what I'm running right now. I currently run an average of 55mins per day 6 days a week for now. Doing doubles by adding in a 25 to 30 min a.m. run seems like it's not gonna help me much? My 'long' runs are about 80 to 90 mins.

I believe that mentality plays a huge role in running performance. You can ALWAYS go faster, it just feels like crap. You have to learn that is normal.

Slow jogger wrote:

Been jogging for about 2 years now, 5k PR is only a 19:30, 10k 41:00. I run about 40 mpw i do a progression long run, i do one threshold run, i do plenty of slow easy miles during the week. I do some speed work every third week and do strides at least twice a week. I'm 28 years old and starting to think I'm just gonna be slow forever. I have got my mileage up to 60 mpw for a bit too before i ended up getting hurt. Suggestions?

Height and weight?

Absurd to say you can't improve beyond where you are right now. First off stop telling yourself that--it's not helping. Second you didn't tell us where you started from two years ago to arrive today at 19:30/41, or what happens when you race eg you die or eg you can't get to a higher pace etc

also do you train alone or with a group--for the relative newcomer finding training partners can really jumpstart your performance.

If i were you....

-a progression and a long run every week, not one of each every week

- have an interval session every week, either of the kind suggested above, or alternate it with one when you dial back a bit the interval itself and hammer the recoveries (google cruise intervals ie. alternations, aussie quarters etc). that stuff is proxy for an AT workout (if you run the times right thats where the average will be) but much more challenging and bang for your buck than a straight tempo

- also.. for some people running intervals at faster than race pace doesnt work. so rather than doing endless sets of 400m/800m at a pace you will never get nowhere near on a race try to do maybe 800m with 30" off, 1000m with 45" off and 1200 with 60" off. You see where this is going... either you make the recoveries way faster (ie. at marathon pace) or way shorter.

- do a hill session every week where you either hammer both the uphill and the downhill back, and then rest, or one where you try to hit the same times both going up and down (obviously cant be too steep). up 2'30"/3'. when you run hills in a race you dont have the luxury to slow down at the top...

I am much older than you so how on earth can i be way faster than you....

KAV wrote:

-a progression and a long run every week, not one of each every week

.

-a progression OR a long run every week, not one of each every week

What is your macrocycle like? Current weight, height, etc?

Typical training weeks and paces? I think you can make a lot of headway @40MPW. Are you taking off weeks and months at a time? Consistency is key

I have a feeling you just need to push a little harder, perhaps "easy" is TOO easy (I believe there is a "TOO EASY")

xlev2 wrote:

Absurd to say you can't improve beyond where you are right now. First off stop telling yourself that--it's not helping. Second you didn't tell us where you started from two years ago to arrive today at 19:30/41, or what happens when you race eg you die or eg you can't get to a higher pace etc

also do you train alone or with a group--for the relative newcomer finding training partners can really jumpstart your performance.

I train alone 5 days a week, once a week i do a group long run but i usually end up running alone for most of the people in my group are slower than me (crazy to think that I know) and occasionally faster people show up and i run with them but they're not always there my average long run pace ends up being around 7:20 to 7:45 pace. The group does speed workouts one day a week but it's difficult for me to get there on time.

Two years ago i went from not running a step first 5k was like a 28 minutes or something logged about 1300/1400 miles my first year?

It's just frustrating to know I've logged nearly 2000 miles for this and my times are very slow still. I did get injured which set me back about 9 weeks though.

Jeremy R wrote:

What is your macrocycle like? Current weight, height, etc?

Typical training weeks and paces? I think you can make a lot of headway @40MPW. Are you taking off weeks and months at a time? Consistency is key

I have a feeling you just need to push a little harder, perhaps "easy" is TOO easy (I believe there is a "TOO EASY")

I have a known max HR of about 205(according to a garmin HR chest strap for how ever accurate that is) my average easy runs are around 145bpm or less on my easy runs. My bogus VO2max # on my garmin watch is ridiculously higher than I could ever imagine to run it says my vo2max is a 59 yet my 5k time is nearly 2 minutes slower than what my predicted race pace is.

I'm 5'11" 154# and about 11% body fat.

Nearly at 2000 miles for my second year **

Why does it seem like adding a 25 to 30 minute AM run isn't going to help much?

Strength is what you get in higher mileage. some people take time to get up to high mileage, and not every person is the same. Some can handle high mileage, some can not. If you feel you are not able to handle 60 mpw, then stay with 45-50. Mix in track workouts to increase speed. I am a big believer in track workouts. I usually hate them, but like many other things in life, like homework, practice, etc.. the things we hate the most are usually what we need the most.

I like 400m repeats. 2 mile warm, 8x400m, with 200m jog between. that's one set. try that every 4 or 5 days with no racing. Try to work up to 2 track workouts per week, and you will see an improvement in your 5 k time.

HRE wrote:

Why does it seem like adding a 25 to 30 minute AM run isn't going to help much?

Most of the posts on here feel that running longer is more beneficial than frequency, unless that frequency happens to be more of a longer duration. So I'd benefit more from an 8 or 9 mile run more so than a 3 mile am run followed by a 6 mile pm run. I'll start trying to get back to 8 miles every run i suppose but doing doubles a few times a week burnt me out over this past summer so this has me hesitant to try doubles again.

Time at effort is what your body is going to respond to. I believe you've got a post where you said your average run is 55 minutes. Does that mean your typical run is 55 minutes, because you could have one 90 minute run and one 20 minute run and your average run would be 55 minutes. But assuming that your normal run is 55 minutes you're already very near what a lot of good and near good runners are doing for run length. A run of an hour or so for a main session is pretty typical. I'd suggest keeping that run to 55-65 minutes and eventually getting in more distance by allowing your pace to get faster as you get fitter. You don't want to force a faster pace, but you also don't want to set 9:00 as your perpetual pace. Adding a second 20 minute run means you'll probably be running at a slightly faster pace with no really increased effort than if you tack that 20 minutes onto one run.. That's not to say you shouldn't be doing 80-90 minute runs. I think a 90-95 minute long run would be good for you. But I don't think you want to do a run of that length everyday, not by a long shot.

I'll make two suggestions on top of the one about doubling, which I still think is best if you can get yourself to it. One suggestion is to run for an hour four to five times a week, have one day at 90-95 minutes and another at 70-80. If you can get a second run in on any of those days do it. If you need a day off have one. But don't worry about mileage. Run for time and let the distance follow. The other suggestion, if that seems too much but you still want to increase your volume is to add a mile a week. If you're managing 45 mile weeks you won't even notice an increase to 46 and then to 47. Do that for three weeks and shorten the fourth week,maybe to 40 or so, then go back to adding a mile to your previous high. You'll be at 60 in less than half a year.

I appreciate you giving me the time to go in depth and try to help me out here. I'm gonna try to get my most of my runs back up to 60mins minimum again and try to push the pace a little bit on days I'm feeling good rather than hold myself back. I'll also work back up to 50mpw and climb to 60mpw by the end of February as well. I do feel like i need to incorporate more speed days faster than 5k pace. Perhaps I'll try to do a race or time trial and get a better read of where I'm at currently. Last race I did was a turkey trot which was my first race since i got injured back in late July.

Slow jogger wrote:

hobbycoach wrote:

What sorts of speed workouts were you doing?

The typical 5k stuff such as 12x400m 60 sec rest , 6x800m 90sec reat, 5x1000m 200m jog rest, 4x1200m 300m jog rests, 3x1600m 3 min rest. Maybe i do my reps too hard, and I'm doing my race in these reps. I follow the Daniels vDots close enough not a 100% though.

I was an ok 5000 runner once, and I generally didn't do stuff like this, though I did do an over the top workout from time to time. 1000m reps with 200m jog are better done at 8-10k pace. At 5k pace, 4-6 x 1000m with 400 jog would be more reasonable. At 3k pace (5k - 5%), 12 x 400, 200 jog or 6 x 800, 400 jog, and those are fairly hard workouts.