Using McMillan running calculator. (Read 1706 times)

I've never seen it until yesterday. According to it I should be running my recovery runs (will be doing one today) at 10:30-11:00 pace. Wish me luck! Not sure if I can slow myself down that much. I will also be trying to use his pacing for my marathon training.

Slowing down like that sometimes seems painful. Must just be a mental battle since normally I am pushing to go faster, not slower! Good luck today, be careful, don't set yourself back with being sick.

You're probably right Jeff. Hadn't even thought about that. Yep definetly a mental battle for me Michelle. I'll definetly be taking it easy today. Between blister and my cold I don't want to do anything to keep me from racing on Sunday. Looks like I'll be aiming between 9:30-10:00 then. THanks!

Recovery run in this context means super easy days like the day after a workout or race. It is the whole run. But everyone is a bit different so if you are recovering well running a bit faster it's okay. As long as you feel better after a recovery run than before it you are probably doing it slow enough.

Recovery run in this context means super easy days like the day after a workout or race. It is the whole run. But everyone is a bit different so if you are recovering well running a bit faster it's okay. As long as you feel better after a recovery run than before it you are probably doing it slow enough.

Yep. "Recovery run," as McMillan uses it, is the whole run, and its slow. (Although come to think of it, it'd probably be a good pace for recovering between intervals, too). I do a lot of "recovery jogs," often 2-3 a week. Usually after every tempo and interval workout, usually after long runs. Sometimes if I just feel like it. I love McMillan, and although I'm not a slave to his recommendations, I've discovered that I naturally follow them pretty damn closely. My long runs, easy runs, and recovery runs all fall in his ranges, even if I don't aim for them. I also use his recommendations for the interval times and they really seem just about right on the money. By the way, I cheat on those recovery runs: the only way I can run 10-10:30 recovery pace is to walk. A lot. A little walk break every five minutes. If I tried just jogging at 10:30 pace, it would suck, and I'd get bored. Running steady that slow really does hurt, too. I have no idea if this is what McMillan has in mind with his "recovery jogs," but it seems to work for me. Your mileage, as always, may vary. One piece of advice using his calculator: make sure you enter various race distances, and use your best recent PRs (and update them as you get faster). I get some varying results depending on whether I enter a 5k or marathon PR (10k seems to work best for me), and then use my best judgment to pick where in the pace range I should aim. Seems to work well. His race predictions seem pretty close, too: based on my March 3rd 10k, he only missed my marathon time by 6 minutes (which can probably be chalked up to the warm day, and/or me being a wuss) and only missed my cold half marathon PR by 10 seconds. Not bad.

Well, you folks (mikeymike, JakeKnight) are right. Recovery jog is a whole workout, as defined by McMillan. I would still submit that it also corresponds to a good interval recovery pace based on my own experience. Here's where McMillan defines his different run types.

I know people who have used coaches (both online and in-person), and I know some coaches (not directly, but through other sites). I think that it really depends on your goals. If you want to commit to being the best that you possibly can, then getting a coach would be worthwhile. In that case, though, I would consider an in-person coach, who can at least see you running initially, and is available for more than just an email every couple of weeks. If you are interested in improving, but don't feel that you can get enough information on your own to be effective, or you're completely new to athletics and aren't sure as to where to even start, then I would say online coaching is probably a better option. That way, you have someone who can create a plan without you having to think about it a whole lot, and can explain things that you don't understand, but you don't have to pay the extra money for overly individualized attention. I do think that picking a coach is a personal thing. You have to match up personality-wise, and there has to be a fairly open communication between both parties. The only coaching I've ever gotten was in HS. I think I would like being a coach. I dunno. That help?

I'm definetly going to use the recommendation times for my intervals and tempo runs. As far as my recovery and easy runs I'm going to try and get as close as I can. On easy runs I tend to get in a certain groove and stay. I'm hoping I'm completely over my cold and can get more of a true idea of my running capability on Sunday.