Pretty sure the illegal PEDs helped.
Pretty sure the illegal PEDs helped.
Comparing one's self to the super elite is always dangerous. Part of why they are super elite is that their body can handle the workloads necessary to perform at that high level. Your typical runner just cannot do that, especially if you are older.
IMO there's no formula for how easy you go on easy days, you should run by feel. Your legs and lungs will tell you whether you're going at it too hard. Basically if you are noticing signs of straining - at all- you should probably back off a bit on effort/distance.
EZ10Miler wrote:
Comparing one's self to the super elite is always dangerous. Part of why they are super elite is that their body can handle the workloads necessary to perform at that high level. Your typical runner just cannot do that, especially if you are older.
IMO there's no formula for how easy you go on easy days, you should run by feel. Your legs and lungs will tell you whether you're going at it too hard. Basically if you are noticing signs of straining - at all- you should probably back off a bit on effort/distance.
Fully agree with that - when talking about fast easy paces, the examples are mostly elites like Solinsky, Rupp, Farah, El Guerrouj, etc.. Not just do the have a much higher VO2MAX than the average runner, they also have better recovery methods/facilities, nutrition, supplements and more.
For runners at low, and moderate-to-high level (say up to 14:15 5k male and 17:00 female), slower easy runs are highly recommended. But we can't generalize and say Rupp and Farah should go back to 7 min miles, or that Solinsky ruined his career cause he never ran slower than 6 min miles - these runners certainly can handle the harder runs and might actually get worse if they slow down on their easy days, keeping everything else constant.
Also agree with the one guy who said workouts shouldn't be killer workouts where you need to feel 100% fresh - going in a workout with a light fatigue can be very beneficial to cause better adaptions (Magness, "Science of Running"). A similar concept are fasted morning runs.
The world's elite endurance athletes, including distance runners, apply volume in a very consistent way. Polarized training, with mostly base (~80-85%) and some sharpening and top end work (15-20%), shows up over and over in longitudinal studies across seasons of how top-level athletes apply load. They become endurance monsters by logging a ton of hours in z1/z2, and it's effective across cycling/ rowing/ skiing/ running.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310725768_Seiler's_Hierarchy_of_Endurance_Training_Needs
That stuff in the middle has a really poor ROI for your training time. The recovery cost is more similar to top end, but adaptation more similar to base. Look at the distribution among top athletes... very little time in the middle.
If you run too hard on the easy days, you are almost certainly leaving something on the table. Either in terms of additional volume you can't handle or additional intensity you cant hit on a hard day.
I agree, too, except for the part about there not being a formula. Most experts/coaches have formulas that range from Tinman calculator to Daniels formula. Most people should do most of their mileage 2.5-4 minutes/mile slower than mile race pace. And if course it means that your form changes. It's nonsense to think it shouldn't. Worry about losing your form when you are running fast, not when you're jogging.
That is true, he said that he would have won if he had trained 2% less hard(2000 Olympics)
jimbo! wrote:
8-8:30 min pace isn't that easy after huge workouts and 150+ mpw
The mileage is sort of the missing part. It is pretty easy to recover from 80-100 miles of running at 5k pace+ 90s-2 mins (i.e. traditional easy run. pace). It is a lot harder when you add all the impact stress of running another 50+ miles. Easiest way to reduce that stress? Run slower so you take shorter strides.
There have been a lot of people that have had success with either approach. Plenty of guys like Ron Clarke and. Steve Jones reported doing most of mileage at 5:30 pace. A lot of others report running slower mileage and also getting good results.
Have a read, I sucked when I ran everything at 6:30s on easy days and raced my track workouts. I got into serious shape when I ran everything slower other then the racing. Joshua Cheptagia 12:51 5km man is known to run 5:00 maybe even 6:00 minute kms on easy day.
https://www.letsrun.com/news/2006/09/wejo-speaks-why-i-sucked-in-college/
Another missing part is where you are on the slow-fast muscle fibre continuum.
Faster twitch types tend to do better running their easy and long runs slower than the slow twitch types. There are several threads on this. See the following for someone similar :
https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8269684
In that thread there is also a link to the famous HADD thread about which type of runner are you.
In my own experience, I am more a faster twitch dude and used to have trouble keeping up with people on easy days. When I would try to stay with them multiple days in the weeks, I would be wiped. I eventually just did my own thing and slowed my pace way down. I ultimately ran faster in races.
I also had more trouble recovering the next days from longer intervals (like 5x1600m), so I slowed those down a bit. My slower twitch mates had the opposite problem-they would be dead from sets of fast 300's whereas I was not as impacted.
seattle dude wrote:
Another missing part is where you are on the slow-fast muscle fibre continuum.
Faster twitch types tend to do better running their easy and long runs slower than the slow twitch types. There are several threads on this. See the following for someone similar :
https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8269684In that thread there is also a link to the famous HADD thread about which type of runner are you.
In my own experience, I am more a faster twitch dude and used to have trouble keeping up with people on easy days. When I would try to stay with them multiple days in the weeks, I would be wiped. I eventually just did my own thing and slowed my pace way down. I ultimately ran faster in races.
I also had more trouble recovering the next days from longer intervals (like 5x1600m), so I slowed those down a bit. My slower twitch mates had the opposite problem-they would be dead from sets of fast 300's whereas I was not as impacted.
Yes, but there is also the point that fast-twitch runners can't go TOO slow on their easy days, or it would feel terrible. Can you imagine Rudisha slogging around at 8-9 min/mile pace? He would feel terrible. Fast-twitch runners need to have a minimum speed to enjoy a run.
Where you are right is that they burn a lot more glycogen at same paces than slow-twitch runners. So if the fast-twitch runners runs too hard too often (and moderate easy running could be just that), he will be glycogen depleted and then it takes several days to get him back up. Been there, done that many times. Finding the right pace as fast-twitch runner is very hard, a slow-twitch runner can't really do much wrong. Also easy to do an easy run way too fast as fast-twitch runner because they feel good and then suck in the workout next day.
The year I ran PRs in the mile/3k/5k I was training at altitude and was running hard on long runs & workouts, but my doubles and easy runs were typically at or slower than 8:00 / mile. I became a firm believer that double runs and easy runs were junk miles meant to just get your legs moving and try and get the crap out of them, and anything faster than "massage pace" was pointless and only keeping you from recovering 100%. Some guys ran well off of normal mileage pace all the time, but my training intensity was at a point that if I didn't run very easy on easy days I wasn't going to recovery like I needed to
LateRunnerPhil wrote:Fast-twitch runners need to have a minimum speed to enjoy a run.
I'm fast-twitch. Ran my 4-mile recovery this morning at 10min/mile because that's all I could manage after yesterday's 9-mile Steady run on hills. I enjoyed it.
There should be no Easy runs. It's either a workout which is where you get faster or a recovery run. Some recovery runs are a bit faster than others in which case you're ready for another workout.
Uhh wrote:
LateRunnerPhil wrote:Fast-twitch runners need to have a minimum speed to enjoy a run.
I'm fast-twitch. Ran my 4-mile recovery this morning at 10min/mile because that's all I could manage after yesterday's 9-mile Steady run on hills. I enjoyed it.
There should be no Easy runs. It's either a workout which is where you get faster or a recovery run. Some recovery runs are a bit faster than others in which case you're ready for another workout.
This is silly, of course there should be easy runs, unless you are only running like 20 mpw
LateRunnerPhil wrote:
island fever runnnnnnn wrote:
There are a ton of sub 2:10 marathoners in Japan laughing at you right now.
OP, the Japanese do 8:00-8:30 pace on easy days. They average sub 5:00 pace for marathons. Take it easy. Enjoy the ride.
Rupp and Farah went 5:30 to 5:40/mi average on easy days. Salazar was shitting on Farah when he took him over to train him, because Farah was running easy days on 6:30/mi pace. Salazar said Farah is just burning calories without getting any better and dropped his easy pace by ~1 min/mile.
What followed? Massive performance explosion (not saying the easy pace is the main cause, but might have contributed).
The Tinman Elite are known to keep their easy days really easy, but weren't able to show up during the last 2 big races (BU 5k and OT).
So there are definitely multiple philosophies regarding easy days. Salazar thinks that you don't have to be super fresh each time during workout days, whereas Tinman and others want full recovery to occur during easy days.
Ah Salazar, how did his runners always manage them easy paces without crashing.
Mmmmm let me hazard a guess
LateRunnerPhil wrote:
island fever runnnnnnn wrote:
There are a ton of sub 2:10 marathoners in Japan laughing at you right now.
OP, the Japanese do 8:00-8:30 pace on easy days. They average sub 5:00 pace for marathons. Take it easy. Enjoy the ride.
Rupp and Farah went 5:30 to 5:40/mi average on easy days. Salazar was shitting on Farah when he took him over to train him, because Farah was running easy days on 6:30/mi pace. Salazar said Farah is just burning calories without getting any better and dropped his easy pace by ~1 min/mile.
What followed? Massive performance explosion (not saying the easy pace is the main cause, but might have contributed).
The Tinman Elite are known to keep their easy days really easy, but weren't able to show up during the last 2 big races (BU 5k and OT).
So there are definitely multiple philosophies regarding easy days. Salazar thinks that you don't have to be super fresh each time during workout days, whereas Tinman and others want full recovery to occur during easy days.
The thing is that aerob running is 19 times more economical than anaerob running. One molecular glycogen gives 38 molecular ATP at aerob running and only 2 molecular ATP at anaerob running. Aerob running and anaerob running both gives mitochondria for the energy process, but at anaerob running not so many as at aerob running, but stronger and more efficient.
It`s good to know that mitochondria is produced at both aerob/anaerob running and this knowledge is one of the parts in the explanation why it`s possible to reach individual optimal performance on relatively low mileage.Even the right individual aerob pace is important to improve the speed at witch aerobic work becomes anaerobic. This sweet spot you will improve best by running close to it and not too slow. I have told so many times before that perfect training is mostly a matter of perfect individual paces. And that includes maxVO2 -pace, lactate threshold pace and also very important right aerobic power pace .
- The Wizard -