College Runners Run Too Fast?

I think in some respects it depends on the athlete, and what other type of training is going on. Personally I couldn't handle it psychologically (or probably physically) running that fast every day, I like to enjoy my non-workout days. But especially in base period I will occasionally churn out some fast hard runs because it feels good.

Some of the runners would probably run faster, some would run slower. In my opinion they'd be better off taking it easy more, I think it prepares you mentally better for racing because you're itching to finally run fast. Same thing with workouts, I don't think you should do them to exhaustion, always save just a little.

think about what you just wrote:

"after reading the threads by Hadd and the general consensus of the letsrun.com posters."

how many sub-4 milers have the above produced? how many have those colleges produced? do the same for 5k and 10k times. there is a reason why those guys run fast - its because they train hard. how fast do you think geb does his training runs? 8:00 pace?

hadd and letsrun.com posters are nothing but talk and a keyboard.

Except everyone here is under some weird assumption that if you run your easy days fast, then that improves performance. Look at the schools' talent you just listed. If they all are 4:05 milers, then 6:00 pace is jogging. Besides, Wisconsin doesn't do that. I know exactly how Wisconsin trains and let me tell you, it is less than overly intense. My best friend is one of the assistant coaches. It's a large emphasis on LT and long easy days.

Please explain whatever you can. In detail if the coach doesn't mind and a little bit more summary if the coach does mind.

Being a college runner, I feel that up to this point, I really haven't done enough distance. Partly because I'm no great talent, and partly because I'm running DIII, so it isn't as big of a pressure for everything to be perfect. I started to amend my ways this past year, and I was doing fine, but then missed 2 weeks in January and 2 more in March because of stupid, stupid injuries and haven't been able to get back since.

As far as the bigger programs go, I'm willing to accept that they run as well as they do because a) they have a lot of talent and b) because they train their asses off. I trust that their coaches (with a few exceptions) know what they are doing. Many would argue that there is no such thing as too much mileage. I don't think having runners hitting 100 mpw and higher is detrimental to their running.

I'd rather not say any specifics, because I don't want to speak for him/get some wrong facts. But the impression I got was that it wansn't a "do a lot of quality" workouts school nor is it one where you crank the recovery days. Seemed to be more of a moderate workout school focusing on LT style workouts vs. vVO2 max or anaerobic stuff, as well as really recovering on the easy days. I'd say Wisconsin is pretty successful too, and granted they get incredible talent, but still, all the runners improve over the course of the program and are rarely injured.

No, Geb doesn't run 8:00 miles-but he doesn't run 6 minute miles, either. By most account, the bulk of his mileage is around 6:30-and this is a 12:39 guy. Why should a 13:50 college kid be running his mileage faster than Geb? A few times a week during base phase, fine. But during the season, in between work outs, it is just foolish. Another problem is everyone on the team thinks they need to run the same pace. We had a 13:25 guy, and the 15:30 guys ran the same pace on their "easy days." Of course, on work-out days, they couldn't come close to keeping up. And two years later, they are still running 15:30's.

Daniels' VDOT tables call for a 6 minute easy day pace for someone in 29:34 shape. That's not unreasonable for a top team, and given that Daniels' formula is fairly conservative in approach to mileage and intensity versus a philosophy like Lydiard's, 6 minute pace is quite reasonable. I myself found 6 minute easy days comfortable when I was in 30 minute shape. If you're always doing it, it gets very tolerable.

Kjell wrote:

By most account, the bulk of his mileage is around 6:30-and this is a 12:39 guy.

Not doubting you, but I would be interested in a link, if you have one.

Kjell wrote:

Another problem is everyone on the team thinks they need to run the same pace. We had a 13:25 guy, and the 15:30 guys ran the same pace on their "easy days."

And some coaches want everyone to run the same pace in big ol' packs all the time because it supposedly fosters team camaraderie. That's fine to an extent, but the 1530 guy(s) will help team camaraderie a lot more by becoming a 1430 guy on his own as opposed to hammering his easy days with sub 14-types in the name of team building and as a result staying in a perpetually overtrained state. I don't know how much this happens on teams with 13:25 guys, but many coaches of slower teams buy into the notion of team-bonding before fitness (which maybe explains why they remain slower).

I think people spend too much time at what i call 'inbetween' paces. these are paces that are not quite fast enough to promote threshold, but not slow enough to aid recovery. for a guy that can run 5:30 pace for a 5k, 6:00 miles can be good for threshold, but all 6:15, 6:20, 6:30 do is break down muscles more. those paces can't help too much in terms of threshold. what do you think?

Since much of the support here is anecdotal in nature, I'll throw in some more evidence:

I trained with a 28:12 guy. I ran 30:02. We refused to train with a group of locals because they ran their easy runs around 6:00 pace, which we considered much too fast. They refused to run hard sessions with us because they were unable to keep up. Two of these guys (out of three) were around 57-58 minutes for ten miles, only two minutes faster than their training pace. For them, every day was medium-hard, while our easy days were easy and our hard days damn hard.

I also know many of the Kenyans in Albuquerque in the late 80's ran their easy days around 8:00 pace. That group included one of the world's top marathoners and a WR-holder in the steeple.

I agree. If the sole purpose is recovery, then running between AT pace and true recovery won't aid you. For me, recovery stops when red muscle is maxed out, I can tell because my legs start to "force" off the road and my stride changes slightly. This is about 80% of 5k velocity for me, or Moderate Pace. I usually go slower, around 70% 5k pace for a recovery day. When I'm in 15 flat shape, 6:02 is moderate pace and not recovery because red muscle is maxed out. 6:25 is brisk pace and I still don't like it because glucose becomes a primary fuel source, so you are still using glycogen. That's my cutoff. I run slower than 6:30 to be safe, usually around 6:50. I don't really calculate and run that, I have it down by feel now so that's just where I end up. Sometimes it pays to know some physiology, because I could well run 6:20 and be comfortable, but I have noticed my race times and workouts suffer if I do.

For a guy running 5:30 pace, 6:20 would be steady state. This can be very efficient training, but not necessarily recovery. But the original poster is not talking about 5:30 pace (I have high school kids faster than that); He is talking about the best college distance programs, where a race pace of 4:30-4:45 would be more the norm...and for some of us (800 runners), it might be as fast as 4:50 pace FOR RECOVERY. Kim MacDonald's people were running something like 5:30-5:40 on their recovery runs, so I don't see it particularly onerous for a top college runner who might be racing 10-20 seconds per mile slower than Bob to be running easy days 15-30 seconds per mile slower.

Why would you judge McDonnell by comparing him to Hadd. Seems to me that the comparison should be the other way around.

4:50 pace for recovery? I'm willing to bet, and yeah I'm going out on a limb, but there is no one on this planet that can run 72 second quarters and recover.

just for the record, i was using 5:30 pace as an example. also, there are not too many college athletes within 10-20 seconds of BK in a 5k, when he was rolling. 13:20 would be a stud college guy and there MAY BE a couple a year capable of that.

let's say these guys are racing 4:20-4:30 pace for 5k. i would put their thresholds inbetween 4:50-5:20 for a short AT run (about 20 minutes - i have rarely heard of colleges doing AT runs that short and have always wondered why.) i doubt many college guys are clipping off 6 miles AT runs at 4:50.) so the point is why go out for 10-15 miles at 6:00 at all? why not do a bit more, slower? how is 6:00 beneficial to a guy racing at 4:20-4:30? i certainly don't know the answer, but i would love to know.

He must have meant 5:50.

For a guy racing 4:30 pace for 5k, 6:00 would be brisk pace, anything slower is true recovery. For that calibre runner, yeah 5:20 pace is AT and it would be good to run 8-10 miles at that pace. I certainly wouldn't go shorter than 8.

why not do a shorter AT run a bit quicker? i know the 8 miles tempos at 5:20 are worthwhile, but i disagree that 8 miles should be the only one you do. i think 3-5 miles at a slightly faster pace can be even more effective in developing focus as well as threshold. let's be honest, a true AT run is supposed to get an athlete as close to a threshold as possible without going over the edge. so a bit shorter, but closer to the true threshold would seem to be beneficial.