Increase Miles vs. Picking up the Pace. During base building, how slow is too slow?

No such thing as too slow, only too fast. Mileage makes champs. considering As a example, Henry Rono base phase consisted of 30 km a day at a 5-6 minute kilometer pace(18.6 miles at 8-10 minute mile pace).

No such thing wrote:

No such thing as too slow, only too fast. Mileage makes champs. considering As a example, Henry Rono base phase consisted of 30 km a day at a 5-6 minute kilometer pace(18.6 miles at 8-10 minute mile pace).

+1

If you run hard everyday you won't recover. 100 % agree with the post above. we had a 4:10 miler at my school who ran most his mileage at 8 flat. workouts are going to make or break up. make sure you're recovered so you can kill your workouts.

Does anyone else find that running between 9 to 10 Minute mile pace is so slow that your form goes really sloppy and you feel achy and niggly in joints from running in such a slow manner. (Excluding terrain and elevation factors).

I feel the most comfortable slow pace on the flat tarmac is around 8 minute mile pace but maybe that’s because I’m tall at 6’ 1

So slow wrote:

Does anyone else find that running between 9 to 10 Minute mile pace is so slow that your form goes really sloppy and you feel achy and niggly in joints from running in such a slow manner.

I feel really slow when I'm running at a 9:00 mile pace, but if I pick it up to an 8 minute mile pace, I can't get in as many miles without getting injured. That's where my question becomes, do I keep increasing miles and stay at the snail pace, or do I keep running the same mileage and let my pace gradually increase.

mmayna20 wrote:

My goal is to run under 19:00 for a 5k.

I'm 27 years old and running 33 miles per week at roughly 9:10 mile pace for most miles (easy miles keeping my heart rate at around 150).

I plan to gradually increase to reach 42mpw and hold there until mid June (then cut back and sharpen before races).

Everything I read says more miles = faster race, however I can't shake the feeling that I'm running too slow and I need to keep my mpw where it's at until my easy miles are closer to an 8:15 mile pace.

Or I could go the opposite way and slow down to a 10:00 mile pace and get up to like 50mpw.

So my question is, When do you stop increasing mileage and wait for your "easy miles" pace to quicken?

You haven't given us much of your history. How long have you been running and what's your current PR? Are you kind of fit or seriously overweight?

But easy pace should feel easy. You feel like you're running too slow. And in fact, 9:10 pace is on the slow end for someone running 6:06/mile for a 5K. It's not impossible, but if it feels too slow to you, it probably is too slow.

Try this: Go for an easy run. Don't look at your watch - ever. Don't look at your heart rate. Just run at the pace that feels right. When you finish, you can look at your pace if you're curious. Or you can just leave your watch at home if you can't resist looking at it.

If necessary, do this every day.

Leave the watch at home every easy run day.

Welllll.... wrote:

Leave the watch at home every easy run day.

But than it won't be on Strava.

If you have to look at your watch, make sure that pace and HR are always displayed side-by-side. You know that the goal is to make both number low (fast pace and relaxed effort). Yet, deliberately lowering one is always countered by increasing number of the others.

You can do any of these three ways of controlling your easy run:

1) Fixed HR (around 70% max, at most 75% max)

2) Fixed pace (roughly one that gives easy HR, from recent runs)

3) Run by the same easy feel without looking constantly at your watch, but set the auto-lap buzzer at every 400m (initially) and display the HR and pace for the lap, and try to improve your judgement for the next lap. This keeps long easy run interesting. After few sessions you can sharpen your feel, not only for the pace/HR, but also the distance (you can guess the buzzer will come within seconds).

On the more general question, easy run should feel easy

1) When you run it (conversational pace, or if you run alone, should be able to breath only through your nose and not even aware of the air flow)

2) Easy for the rest of the day, can work and live normally, as if not having run

3) Easy when you wake up the following morning, no stiffness or soreness

4) Still easy (no accumulated fatigue) after doing it many days in a row

I suspect your claimed easy pace is still to fast. If you max HR is 180-190, then 150 is too hard for easy run.

start here wrote:

You haven't given us much of your history. How long have you been running and what's your current PR? Are you kind of fit or seriously overweight?

I'm 5'10" , 147lbs, and I've been running for 6 months with a 1 month injury rest and a slow ease to get to where I am now (making sure I didn't get injured again). I ran a 21:30 5k back in winter and it's the first 5k I've run in 11 years. I did that on about 20 miles per week.

..., and have already been injured for 1 month - you are running to hard most of the time.

in almost all of your runs, except 1-2 per week, you should be able to breathe mostly through your nose. You can keep the watch on, but the real check is the breathing check, not the pace or HR. Geek out on it when you come home. Breathe slow = . breathe easy.

If you really want to know more, check the following, and read/educate/inform yourself - then you can make some decisions that suit you well.

Google or find

-Stephen Seiler - polarized training / he is active on twitter / has been interviewed numerous times on podcasts.

-David Roche (trailrunningmagazine) - strides, easy running, running injuries.

-Alan Couzens - polarised training etc

Bottom line - if you run alot very slowly and have 1-2 hard days a week, you will see amazing results. and also, you will most likely reduce your injury risk by a large percentage.

Slow is what makes your engine bigger, which makes you run faster.

So slow wrote:

Does anyone else find that running between 9 to 10 Minute mile pace is so slow that your form goes really sloppy and you feel achy and niggly in joints from running in such a slow manner. (Excluding terrain and elevation factors).

I feel the most comfortable slow pace on the flat tarmac is around 8 minute mile pace but maybe that’s because I’m tall at 6’ 1

Yeah, it's TOO slow. Don't mess around with 9:00-10:00 min/mile if you're a sub-3:00 marathoner unless you're going straight up hill. I don't Whitlock even went that slow. You might as well walk. Yes, you can run too slow. 8:00 min/mile is plenty slow.

mmayna20 wrote:

My goal is to run under 19:00 for a 5k.

I'm 27 years old and running 33 miles per week at roughly 9:10 mile pace for most miles (easy miles keeping my heart rate at around 150).

I plan to gradually increase to reach 42mpw and hold there until mid June (then cut back and sharpen before races).

Everything I read says more miles = faster race, however I can't shake the feeling that I'm running too slow and I need to keep my mpw where it's at until my easy miles are closer to an 8:15 mile pace.

Or I could go the opposite way and slow down to a 10:00 mile pace and get up to like 50mpw.

So my question is, When do you stop increasing mileage and wait for your "easy miles" pace to quicken?

Ran one summer 70ish MPW at 7:30-8:00 easy pace. Ran the next summer 6:45-7:15 easy runs and went from 16:51-16:06 consistently beating my two teammates who did the exact same mileage/workouts as me by 30 seconds on average. Yes they ran workouts with me they just couldn't hang in the race. That is when I learned what works for one may not work for others.

I also find that doubling a lot tends to work for a lot of my peers and myself. doubles like 6 & 4 8& 6 one run being a bit faster if not a workout.

No such thing wrote:

No such thing as too slow, only too fast. Mileage makes champs. considering As a example, Henry Rono base phase consisted of 30 km a day at a 5-6 minute kilometer pace(18.6 miles at 8-10 minute mile pace).

So you think jogging 15 min miles helps your fitness?

Reality is the OP doesn't really need to slow down to run more miles. He just needs to run more miles. 9:10 is pretty darn slow (for an average. Assuming sea level and not up a mountain in mud) pace for a guy looking to race 6:10 for 5k. If he was running like 7:30s we could talk about taking it easy.

Reality is that if he ups the miles to 50, the average pace will pick up to 830 or so.

Now if he wants to try high mileage(100+ week), we can talk about slowing down and the like. But we are talking someone running 30 mpw. You are developing much day to day fatigue with that amount of training.

average marathoner wrote:

So slow wrote:

Does anyone else find that running between 9 to 10 Minute mile pace is so slow that your form goes really sloppy and you feel achy and niggly in joints from running in such a slow manner. (Excluding terrain and elevation factors).

I feel the most comfortable slow pace on the flat tarmac is around 8 minute mile pace but maybe that’s because I’m tall at 6’ 1

Yeah, it's TOO slow. Don't mess around with 9:00-10:00 min/mile if you're a sub-3:00 marathoner unless you're going straight up hill. I don't Whitlock even went that slow. You might as well walk. Yes, you can run too slow. 8:00 min/mile is plenty slow.

I know many runners who run faster than 2:40 for the marathon who often do their easy runs at a 9-10 minute pace. It's about going easy, not the pace.

Any amount of aerobic activity helps. Even walking, 2:06 marathoner does his easy runs at a 8 minute pace(Assuming OP can't do a mile at that pace) and even does some walking.

I find this hard to believe. Maybe at altitude on a hilly route after a tough workout. If it's a 3 mile run in the morning fine, but on a typical 6-10 mile easy run?

Lydiard Cerutty wrote:

I know many runners who run faster than 2:40 for the marathon who often do their easy runs at a 9-10 minute pace. It's about going easy, not the pace.

And is that 206 marathoner doing 4 hours of training/week? We have know way of knowing if walking makes a difference. It could be the only benefit of walking is that it kills time(i.e. you don't try and run another 3 hours). When you have done 10+ hours/week of aerobic work, feel free to do whatever you want. When you doing a lot less than that, you need to think about being somewhat efficient.

We are so far from elite at this point. Running at 3 mins/mile slower than 5k pace is easy running. Slowing it down to 10 min miles isn't going to help. It just makes you run funny(you can't run that slow with any type of decent cadence or foot strike).

At 33 miles/week, you have 3 choice

A) do a lot of quality work

B) up the mileage

C) both

Either works. OP easy way is to up the mileage by 10 mpw. He will find in 6 weeks his easy pace will be faster at the same level of effort.

Here is what I found over 34 years of training myself, and watching/helping other runners as far as the base mileage training pace is concerned:

This is actually applicable to a wide range of running ability and fitness level.

- Slower than 10:00 - not much improvement - even if that is all the runner can do for half a mile. If you are stuck there, I think the best way to get out is to run 10:00 for as long as you can, then take a walking break, until you can do it again, and do it until you have run a mile total. Then work on reducing your rest until you can run the full mile in 10:00. Then start extending the distance until you can run a few miles at 10:00 pace. This is how my wife recovers after giving birth (she is a 24:19 5 K runner).

- 9:00 - 10:00 - good pace, will help you develop some. Once you can run 6 miles at that pace, though, you get better results by increasing the pace somewhere in the direction of 8:00 before you start increasing the mileage more.

8:00 - 9:00 - solid fitness development happens here if you are comfortable in this range, increase the mileage to 8 a day.

7:00-8:00 - once you are fit enough to run this pace with a reasonable degree of comfort, that is where aerobic development miracles happen, and you can turn into a beast relative to what you used to me. OK to increase the mileage up until you just do not have the time for more. OK to keep the pace in the slower end of that range if you are doing tempos and intervals.

sub-7:00 - you will continue to develop if you can survive it, so be very careful. At this point you are starting to put some strain on your heart, muscles/tendons/joints, and the hormonal balance. You might be strong enough to take it in all dimensions, or, more common, you will have a weakness in one of those areas that will result in some form of overtraining or injury because your areas of strength make that pace feel easy. At the same time, this pace range does not offer significantly more benefits than 8:00 even if you are strong enough to handle it. Better put most of your efforts into workouts/tempos.

So in summary - I do not believe that the base mileage pace should be just a certain percentage of your race pace. It depends on what your race pace is. If it is in the slow range, your base runs should be more aggressive, and in extreme cases, you do your base runs at faster than your mile race pace in bursts with walking breaks. On the other end of the extreme, if you are world-class you can afford to be way slower than your marathon race pace in your base mileage if you do enough fast running in workouts.

I do not know why it works this way, but my guess is that base mileage training consists of multiple dimensions - muscular, cardio, nervous systems, etc - and in some of those areas there are minimum required levels of intensity you have to reach in order to improve that are not sensitive to your current fitness. E.g. perhaps running slower than 10:00 does not generate enough metabolism to stimulate adequate fat loss or muscle development, or perhaps it makes you practice inferior muscle recruitment patterns, while those barriers get overcome at sub-8:00 pace completely with no new barriers to cross as the pace gets faster.

So overall what I'm gathering is, as a 21:30 5k runner looking to get to 19:00, during base building:

I should make an effort for easy miles at least under a 9:00 mile pace and put in as many miles as I can handle without burnout or injury. (Assuming I'm in good enough shape that my heart rate and breathing stays low and they feel easy).

If I'm too worn out and "easy feeling pace" slows beyond 9:30 mile pace (not including warm up and cool down) I should probably rest because it's generally not good for form and it would be more beneficial to take a break.

This thread has had some very insightful info and I appreciate all the takes. If anyone else has a different take or some more reading I could check out, I'd welcome it