Are my easy runs too slow?

Sound like a newbie, so keep it up. Don't focus on pace, focus on effort.

Nope.

If anything, they might be a bit too fast. Keep them at that pace

You need to run more mileage. Work up to 40-50 miles per week and do strides twice a week. Keep the tempos, but try not to run workouts that require a fast pace and heavy effort.

The goal of strides are to have relaxed form while building from a jog to a sprint for about 12 seconds. Emphasis on relaxation, and focus on quick leg turnover

But really, get more miles in. Easy does it, and you'll be a beast in a year if you manage to not get injured

In my opinion you are running too slow even for a build up.

But, if your intention is to bring it up to around 50 miles it ok, but once you have stopped increasing the mileage you should start increasing the pace of you runs.

Try running for 20-25 minutes at 9-9:30 pace most days of the week, keep it so you are holding form and feeling comfortable.

Slowly build up to doing this comfortably for 50 minutes ompst days of the week over the course of a couple of months.

Forget about 50 mile weeks for now, you need to focus on building up to comfortable 20-30 mile weeks. Add strides.

Gjsndjdkfm wrote:

Nope.

If anything, they might be a bit too fast. Keep them at that pace

You need to run more mileage. Work up to 40-50 miles per week and do strides twice a week. Keep the tempos, but try not to run workouts that require a fast pace and heavy effort.

The goal of strides are to have relaxed form while building from a jog to a sprint for about 12 seconds. Emphasis on relaxation, and focus on quick leg turnover

But really, get more miles in. Easy does it, and you'll be a beast in a year if you manage to not get injured

That's good advice, just make sure to increase gradually.

Also add 1-2 days of hill sprints, one for shorter like 8-10s sprints with full recovery (build from 4 to 10) and one for longer 20-30 sec hill sprints with jog down recovery. That way you can get in maximum effort/close to maximum without the risk that sprinting on the flat/track has.

But first work on building your mileage, 6 days of running for roughly 1 hour should be the goal before you introduce anything else.

I agree with all the advise given. Even if you end up keeping your weekly mileage at 30, you'll see a big improvement in your 800. Once you've been at 30 for a bit, and you know you are handling the mileage, then gradually move it up to 40 or 50.

Easy pace should be an effort not a strict pace. Just listen to your body.

And the mileage is definitely too low. Try running 6 days a week with easy runs 30-45 minutes and a long run of 60 minutes. Then you have 2 fast workouts a week, one speed oriented (like intervals) and one strength oriented (like a 15-20 minute tempo run).

Hope that helps!

2 pump chump wrote:

I'm training to run a decent 800(with the 400 being secondary). I think at my current general fitness, my absolute lack of endurance is holding me back.

100: 12.7-12.8

200: 26.6

Those imo, aren't too bad. But my 5k shape is likely around 21:5x right now and I've been trying to improve on that side with easy running and tempo repeats/runs and a few weeks down the line harder repeats at vo2max effort

I do my easy runs around 10:00/mi, is that doing me any good? I make sure to keep them comfortable but at an effort where my breathing is slightly elevated at least; my mileage is 15 mpw which is like 10 miles higher than its ever been lol

do the runs at a pace that allows you to breath thru your nose. any faster is too fast. they might seem slow. don't worry. as you get fitter, they will get faster.

google stephen seiler. he's a u.s.-born sports scientist now in norway. his studies on building "aeorbic capacity" are worth paying attention to.

baby steps wrote:

I agree with all the advise given. Even if you end up keeping your weekly mileage at 30, you'll see a big improvement in your 800. Once you've been at 30 for a bit, and you know you are handling the mileage, then gradually move it up to 40 or 50.

I'm confused here. How do you agree with all the advice, when one guy says:

If anything, they might be a bit too fast. Keep them at that pace

...and the next guy says

In my opinion you are running too slow even for a build up.

Confusion is confusing wrote:

baby steps wrote:

I agree with all the advise given. Even if you end up keeping your weekly mileage at 30, you'll see a big improvement in your 800. Once you've been at 30 for a bit, and you know you are handling the mileage, then gradually move it up to 40 or 50.

I'm confused here. How do you agree with all the advice, when one guy says:

If anything, they might be a bit too fast. Keep them at that pace

...and the next guy says

In my opinion you are running too slow even for a build up.

Just continue to run at your pace while following the advice of the poster above you (who suggested to run your easy runs at a pace that allows you to continuously breathe through your nose.)If its too fast, you will know. If its too slow, just increase the pace till you find your limit and back off a couple notches

Hey guys thanks so much for the great helpful replies. Building mileage seems to be the most important thing here, and I think j should be able to manage tha smoothly since my easy pace has me feeling great by the end o my distance runs.

Also on strides, I've been doing usually 1 session of strides (4-6x80-100m) a week at around 800m effort and 1 weekly session of short hill sprints it flag flying sprints. I think these have been great for my speed so I'm continuing to do them.

Thanks again for all your help =) and any further general advice is much appreciated

Last bit of advice: HAVE FUN!

Ain't no sense in forcing yourself to run when it makes you unhappy.

Question: Does it feel easy?

Eas pace = pace you are running a5 while being roughly around 140 bpm

I’m all for taking “easy days easy” and “hard days hard” but even on easy days, you need some aerobic stimulus going on. If you are under 120 bpm it won’t be contributing to your pace.

Forget about 50 mile weeks, there is literally no point in that beint your goal right now. Get comfortable with 20 mile weeks. For a 21 minute 5k runner, 9 minute miles are great for 70% of your mileage. Say you were going for a 40 minut run, might find 9 minute miling to be too easy in the first 15 minutes and quite challenging in the last 15 minutes particularly, easy runs should not be challenging but if you are anaerobically WAY stronger than you are aerobically, it is hard to find that balance. I do agree that 10 minute miles are a bit on the slow side in terms of being enough to get proper aerobic stimulus. Sure, do your long runs at that pace but your every day base - I agree that you should start with 2 or 3 miles at 140 bpm/9 minute pace (don’t split hairs and obsess over pace here - if your pace is 9:12 or you are at 136 bpm you are still in the ballpark) and build up to doing this at thesame ffort level for 6 ot 7 miles over 4 or 5 months. Go by feel. I have a great feeling that going by feel for a 20-30 minute run you WILL end up around 9 pace give or take with your current aerobic fitness.

I’m going to stress this again: forget about 50 mile weeks this entire year if injury prevention is your goal (which it should be). Your base is so non-existant right now that you are going to get just as much benefit from 25 mile weeks right now as you would killing yourself for 50 mile weeks.

Do not neglect tempos and long runs.

robert678 wrote:

Easy pace should be an effort not a strict pace. Just listen to your body.

And the mileage is definitely too low. Try running 6 days a week with easy runs 30-45 minutes and a long run of 60 minutes. Then you have 2 fast workouts a week, one speed oriented (like intervals) and one strength oriented (like a 15-20 minute tempo run).

Hope that helps!

Long runs? Tempo runs? Intervals once a week?

I think for a 400/800m runner you are advising him how you would train for the 5k/10k. If he is running 10:00 pace on runs now he is not a strength runner. His second event is the 400m, so I don't see this as sound advice.

The Overexplainer wrote:

robert678 wrote:

Easy pace should be an effort not a strict pace. Just listen to your body.

And the mileage is definitely too low. Try running 6 days a week with easy runs 30-45 minutes and a long run of 60 minutes. Then you have 2 fast workouts a week, one speed oriented (like intervals) and one strength oriented (like a 15-20 minute tempo run).

Hope that helps!

Long runs? Tempo runs? Intervals once a week?

I think for a 400/800m runner you are advising him how you would train for the 5k/10k. If he is running 10:00 pace on runs now he is not a strength runner. His second event is the 400m, so I don't see this as sound advice.

For a 400 runner, their 'long run' would be something like a hour fartlek and mostly be done in the off season. And for 400 runners, 'tempo runs' mean something different.

The "Overexplainer" is right. You're getting a lot of bad advice in this thread given that you're a 400/800 runner. What is your running background? How many years and what kind of training? Are you in high school or older? And I'm assuming you're male? (No insult intended by the question, but your 100/200/5000 times aren't out of range of possibility for a fast female). Let's assume for the moment that you're a teenage male 400-800 runner with only a few years in the sport: 50 miles a week is too much. You can build up to more like 20-25 miles per week and bring the pace down a bit after you are comfortable with the mileage. But even with that said, a bunch of slow distance days is not necessary or helpful to a 400-800 type. Do some fartlek and hill repeats on a regular basis. For the harder "endurance" days, make the fartlek more like 3 minutes on, then a minute or two easy (then repeat), which will benefit you more than a 20-minute hard run or a slow distance run. Frankly, a bunch of 4 mile runs at 9-10 minute pace isn't going to help you much.

The Overexplainer wrote:

robert678 wrote:

Easy pace should be an effort not a strict pace. Just listen to your body.

And the mileage is definitely too low. Try running 6 days a week with easy runs 30-45 minutes and a long run of 60 minutes. Then you have 2 fast workouts a week, one speed oriented (like intervals) and one strength oriented (like a 15-20 minute tempo run).

Hope that helps!

Long runs? Tempo runs? Intervals once a week?

I think for a 400/800m runner you are advising him how you would train for the 5k/10k. If he is running 10:00 pace on runs now he is not a strength runner. His second event is the 400m, so I don't see this as sound advice.

In order to achieve a better 100/200 conversion, long endurance training is only going to do so much. You will benefit the most from 200m-specific training, not by attempting to increase your endurance training like a middle distance runner. How will running 10 minute miles incressse your top end anaerobic endurance exactly? You need to do some 120-150m repeats at goal pace.