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Train slow or fast to race fast? (Read 1921 times)


Feeling the growl again

    There's no benefit to trying to speed up your average training pace.  The majority of your  mileage, maybe as much as 95% depending on the season, should be at a comfortable easy pace.

     

    That said, I think everyone should include some speed at least 1 or 2x per week year round, even if it is just a set of strides or gentle fartlek.

     

    Your average training pace gets faster because you get in better shape....not because you make a conscious effort to bring it down by trying to push faster on your easy miles.

     

    As with most averages, average training pace is really a poor indicator for...well...almost everything.

    "If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does.  There's your pep talk for today.  Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

     

    I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

     

    AmoresPerros


    Options,Account, Forums

      Average training pace might be a useful predictor for how many hours you're going to spend running, if we combine it with average mileage.

      It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.

      jEfFgObLuE


      I've got a fever...

        Train more to race fast.  Number of miles is far more important than how fast you run them, especially when training for for a long race.  Training more usually means you will have to slow down.  More slow miles is far better than fewer fast miles.  Run most of your miles at a pace where you could sustain a conversation if you were running with someone else.  Every now and then, run faster if you feel like it.  

        On your deathbed, you won't wish that you'd spent more time at the office.  But you will wish that you'd spent more time running.  Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.


        Why is it sideways?

          Train more to race fast.  Number of miles is far more important than how fast you run them, especially when training for for a long race.  Training more usually means you will have to slow down.  More slow miles is far better than fewer fast miles.  Run most of your miles at a pace where you could sustain a conversation if you were running with someone else.  Every now and then, run faster if you feel like it.  

           

          There ya go. 

           

          Training is doing your homework. It's not exciting. More often than not it's tedious. There is certainly no glory in it. But you stick with it, over time, incrementally through no specific session, your body changes. Your mind becomes calloused to effort. You stop thinking of running as difficult or interesting or magical. It just becomes what you do. It becomes a habit. 

           

          Workouts too become like this. Intervals, tempos, strides, hills. You go to the track, to the bottom of a hill, and your body finds the effort. You do your homework. That's training. Repetition--building deep habits, building a runner's body and a runner's mind. You do your homework, not obsessively, just regularly. Over time you grow to realize that the most important workout that you will do is the easy hour run. That's the run that makes everything else possible. You live like a clock.

           

          After weeks of this, you will have a month of it. After months of it, you will have a year of it.

           

          Then, after you have done this for maybe three or four years, you will wake up one morning in a hotel room at about 4:30am and do the things you have always done. You eat some instant oatmeal. Drink some Gatorade. Put on your shorts, socks, shoes, your watch. This time, though, instead of heading out alone for a solitary hour, you will head towards a big crowd of people. A few of them will be like you: they will have a lean, hungry look around their eyes, wooden legs. You will nod in their direction. Most of the rest will be distracted, talking among their friends, smiling like they are at the mall, unaware of the great and magical event that is about to take place.

           

          You'll find your way to a tiny little space of solitude and wait anxiously, feeling the tang of adrenaline in your legs. You'll stand there and take a deep breath, like it's your last. An anthem will play. A gun will sound.

           

          Then you will run.

            Gosh.

            "If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus

              "I want you to pray as if everything depends on it, but I want you to prepare yourself as if everything depends on you."

              -- Dick LeBeau

                Sounds like someone's been reading William James.

                 

                Habit simplifies the movements required to achieve a given result, makes them more accurate and diminishes fatigue.

                "Because in the end, you won't remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn.  Climb that goddamn mountain."

                Jack Kerouac

                  Gosh.

                   

                  +1 and in a very positive way. Inspiring. Love it Smile

                  2017 Goals
                  1) Run more than 231 miles
                  2) Be ready for  HM in the spring

                    There ya go. 

                     

                    Training is doing your homework. It's not exciting. More often than not it's tedious. There is certainly no glory in it. But you stick with it, over time, incrementally through no specific session, your body changes. Your mind becomes calloused to effort. You stop thinking of running as difficult or interesting or magical. It just becomes what you do. It becomes a habit. 

                     

                    Workouts too become like this. Intervals, tempos, strides, hills. You go to the track, to the bottom of a hill, and your body finds the effort. You do your homework. That's training. Repetition--building deep habits, building a runner's body and a runner's mind. You do your homework, not obsessively, just regularly. Over time you grow to realize that the most important workout that you will do is the easy hour run. That's the run that makes everything else possible. You live like a clock.

                     

                    After weeks of this, you will have a month of it. After months of it, you will have a year of it.

                     

                    Then, after you have done this for maybe three or four years, you will wake up one morning in a hotel room at about 4:30am and do the things you have always done. You eat some instant oatmeal. Drink some Gatorade. Put on your shorts, socks, shoes, your watch. This time, though, instead of heading out alone for a solitary hour, you will head towards a big crowd of people. A few of them will be like you: they will have a lean, hungry look around their eyes, wooden legs. You will nod in their direction. Most of the rest will be distracted, talking among their friends, smiling like they are at the mall, unaware of the great and magical event that is about to take place.

                     

                    You'll find your way to a tiny little space of solitude and wait anxiously, feeling the tang of adrenaline in your legs. You'll stand there and take a deep breath, like it's your last. An anthem will play. A gun will sound.

                     

                    Then you will run.

                     

                    I think I have a new signature for my forum posts!  

                      That’s poetic, romantic even, though if each run is an opportunity for (paraphrasing your earlier blog entry from memory) “sonar-like self discovery”, how can training not be interesting or exciting? Unless self discovery is uninteresting (some of us aren’t very interesting people I suppose). If running just becomes what you do, is there a point where you are so unchanging that there’s nothing left to discover? Are some runs tedious homework and others moments of enlightening self-discovery? Maybe. I think so. I get that there’s a certain “time to make the donuts” element to training, but surely there’s something interesting if you want there to be in each run.

                       

                      Slow friday.

                      Come all you no-hopers, you jokers and rogues
                      We're on the road to nowhere, let's find out where it goes

                        Great, now I'm going to think, "Time to make the donuts" every time I go for a run. 

                        "Because in the end, you won't remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn.  Climb that goddamn mountain."

                        Jack Kerouac

                          Then, after you have done this for maybe three or four years, you will wake up one morning in a hotel room at about 4:30am and do the things you have always done. You eat some instant oatmeal. Drink some Gatorade. Put on your shorts, socks, shoes, your watch. This time, though, instead of heading out alone for a solitary hour, you will head towards a big crowd of people. A few of them will be like you: they will have a lean, hungry look around their eyes, wooden legs. You will nod in their direction. Most of the rest will be distracted, talking among their friends, smiling like they are at the mall, unaware of the great and magical event that is about to take place.

                           

                          You'll find your way to a tiny little space of solitude and wait anxiously, feeling the tang of adrenaline in your legs. You'll stand there and take a deep breath, like it's your last. An anthem will play. A gun will sound.

                           

                          Then you will run.

                           Geez, if that doesn't get your adrenalin going, I don't know what will. Nice.

                          Current Goals: Run and stuff


                          Why is it sideways?

                            That’s poetic, romantic even, though if each run is an opportunity for (paraphrasing your earlier blog entry from memory) “sonar-like self discovery”, how can training not be interesting or exciting? Unless self discovery is uninteresting (some of us aren’t very interesting people I suppose). If running just becomes what you do, is there a point where you are so unchanging that there’s nothing left to discover? Are some runs tedious homework and others moments of enlightening self-discovery? Maybe. I think so. I get that there’s a certain “time to make the donuts” element to training, but surely there’s something interesting if you want there to be in each run.

                             

                            Slow friday.

                             

                            There's a certain romance in tedium--anyone who's been married knows this.

                               Geez, if that doesn't get your adrenalin going, I don't know what will. Nice.

                               

                              Yeah, just make sure you don't start off too fast like I did in my first HM because of that adenalin.  Jeff's post is right on though.  I may have to read it again before my HM on Sunday.


                              Slow-smooth-fast

                                Shit me, you could do with publishing a book! Love reading your posts!

                                "I've been following Eddy's improvement over the last two years on this site, and it's been pretty dang solid. Sure the weekly mileage has been up and down, but over the long haul he's getting out the door and has turned himself into quite a runner. He's only now just figuring out his potential. Consistency in running is measured in years, not weeks. And over the last couple of years, Eddy's made great strides" Jeff 14 Jan 2009

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