5 min/km (about 8 min/mile) is VERY slow. Even in my early 50s when a group of us used to do speedwork regularly on the track here at UNC (before they moved the track off campus), our recovery jogs between the reps were at that pace. Back then if I'd done a regular run at 8 min/mile pace my heart rate would have been under 100 bpm.
As for finding slower people to run with, I needed to find faster people to pull me along. (Of course, running too hard may be why I have had so many muscle injuries, including currently not being able to run because of a hamstring strain.)
The article should emphasize that hard days also need to be harder than most club runners do in return for how easy most basic running should be. I am just baffled at how pointlessly easy some of the interval days I see in some of these coaching/training plans by self-proclaimed coaches. People seem to want to run around in Zone 3 all the time (which I would say is a zone you should never run in - bad cost/benefit ration - and wouldn't want to if you are running enough volume and your structured workouts are hard enough). Kevin can attest I have been annoying people with this for 2 decades. Most people just doing normal local level racing run their easy runs too fast and their hard days are too easy. A normal easy run within 1 min/mile of their marathon pace, but then a "workout" would be like 12 x 400m at 5k race pace or something not remotely challenging. And the key to why lots of easy volume works is the benefit *relative to the cost* does not go up as paces get faster unless they get far faster. They key is how do you dole out your finite quanta of recovery cost between mileage, pace and workouts - overall mileage and difficult workouts are a better use than giving a damn how fast easy runs are. Hey Kevin, remember how slow Chad would run easy days - we truly crawled - he would get snippy with me if I started a run much under 8 min pace. But the hardest workouts I ever remember doing were all with Chad. I note runners here completely avoid our surprisingly good, runnable single-track trails and I bet it is because they are obsessing over pace on every run for the sake of Strava or some other pointless look at me techno idiocy.
To me the only question that remains is if one is time- or initiative-limited to run enough volume, is there any advantage to running somewhat harder easy runs to "make up" for not running more total time. That is, using your quanta of energy that would be spent on volume somewhere else rather than not using it at all. My suspicion is I doubt it because physiologically Zone 3 training doesn't really do anything Zone 2 does, but just with added costs. I think I'd "make up for it" on my hard days.
Thank you Kevin! I used to run with Fleet Feet and they emphasized tons of speed work instead of sheer volume at slower speeds. I liked your Kip extrapolations for basic runners with slower times. A 3:15 marathoner should be running base mileage around 10:30-11:00, in that case.
Thank you. I like articles like this.
5 min/km (about 8 min/mile) is VERY slow. Even in my early 50s when a group of us used to do speedwork regularly on the track here at UNC (before they moved the track off campus), our recovery jogs between the reps were at that pace. Back then if I'd done a regular run at 8 min/mile pace my heart rate would have been under 100 bpm.
As for finding slower people to run with, I needed to find faster people to pull me along. (Of course, running too hard may be why I have had so many muscle injuries, including currently not being able to run because of a hamstring strain.)
The article should emphasize that hard days also need to be harder than most club runners do in return for how easy most basic running should be. I am just baffled at how pointlessly easy some of the interval days I see in some of these coaching/training plans by self-proclaimed coaches. People seem to want to run around in Zone 3 all the time (which I would say is a zone you should never run in - bad cost/benefit ration - and wouldn't want to if you are running enough volume and your structured workouts are hard enough). Kevin can attest I have been annoying people with this for 2 decades. Most people just doing normal local level racing run their easy runs too fast and their hard days are too easy. A normal easy run within 1 min/mile of their marathon pace, but then a "workout" would be like 12 x 400m at 5k race pace or something not remotely challenging. And the key to why lots of easy volume works is the benefit *relative to the cost* does not go up as paces get faster unless they get far faster. They key is how do you dole out your finite quanta of recovery cost between mileage, pace and workouts - overall mileage and difficult workouts are a better use than giving a damn how fast easy runs are. Hey Kevin, remember how slow Chad would run easy days - we truly crawled - he would get snippy with me if I started a run much under 8 min pace. But the hardest workouts I ever remember doing were all with Chad. I note runners here completely avoid our surprisingly good, runnable single-track trails and I bet it is because they are obsessing over pace on every run for the sake of Strava or some other pointless look at me techno idiocy.
I love the thought that you should find runners slower than you to run with on some of these runs.
To me the only question that remains is if one is time- or initiative-limited to run enough volume, is there any advantage to running somewhat harder easy runs to "make up" for not running more total time. That is, using your quanta of energy that would be spent on volume somewhere else rather than not using it at all. My suspicion is I doubt it because physiologically Zone 3 training doesn't really do anything Zone 2 does, but just with added costs. I think I'd "make up for it" on my hard days.
Thank you Kevin! I used to run with Fleet Feet and they emphasized tons of speed work instead of sheer volume at slower speeds. I liked your Kip extrapolations for basic runners with slower times. A 3:15 marathoner should be running base mileage around 10:30-11:00, in that case.