Training pace? (Read 1334 times)

Dont "work at" any kind of pace for now.  Just get consistent. Dont work at being slower or work at being faster. 

Can you speak while running? 

Do you finish the majority of your runs feeling like you could have gone more?

Do you recover well from one run to the next or are you getting more and more beat each day?

Quite often the problem at the beginning is that leg strength and cardio strength are not in sync.  When they sync up you'll probably find the right pace naturally.  Until then, just run.

Do you recover well from one run to the next or are you getting more and more beat each day? 

For me personally this is the whole point.  Run hard enough that it doesn't feel unnatural but easy enough that you can run tomorrow.  And the next day. 

MTA: It looks like you are already doing a good job of running nearly every day. 

I can talk on nearly every run... Maybe not in the middle of climbing a hill, but my breathing is generally under control.  I'm recovering pretty well, and I generally alternate a longish day and then a shortish day.  The only time I haven't recovered is the few times I've done extremely hilly runs.  Those sometimes take 2 or 3 days...

I've just read a lot that I shouldn't increase my distance and speed at the same time.  

Perhaps just ignoring the pace and letting it go will be fine...?

Thanks!

-Kelly

Vary your effort.  I get little aches and pains when I run everything at the same effort, fast or slow.  Run mostly at a pace that you could carry on a conversation, but throw in a little fast stuff.  It doesn't have to be much, strides, fartleks, etc.

 +1.  Look at my log.  I do runs that are entirely easy, but look at the smattering of "progression", "fast finish" and "fartlek" runs.  These all contain some amount of quality but not enough to really consider them a workout (although some progressions can be borderline).  This keeps me in a zone where I can recover every day and do 2-3 good workouts per week but still get to exercise some variety day-to-day.

A progression is where you start out easy and just gradually increase the pace so the last 1/3 of your run is comfortably hard.  So you get maybe 2 miles or so that's perhaps tempo effort or close to it, but that's short enough that you will not incur the recovery needs of a typical 4-5 mile tempo run.

A fast finish run is all easy except you rapidly accelerate over the last 1-1.5 miles, so you get .5-.75 miles at a VERY good clip at the end to stretch everything out.  This is so short however that you really don't incur any extra recovery need.

A fartlek can be anything but the way I use them it's a number of pickups during the run, but not enough to really give me a good workout.  Often I do those on days when I had planned to do a workout but soon after starting the first interval/tempo I realize I'm not recovered enough so I just tone it down.

Kelly, today (Saturday) will be a good example of a day where you might want to be cautious about running at the top end of your east effort / pace range.  You ran a race / time trial yesterday which would count as a hard workout.  Today, if you run, you may want to check down the effort a notch or two.  More props on your consistency so far, you're on your way back!

BTW -- Stuff you got from Ennay earlier is golden. 

Kelly there is a big difference between intentionally working the speed and the volume at the same time and finding your natural pace.   I wouldnt (personally - I know there are some who disagree) do a large amount of structured speedwork with the INTENTION of getting faster while you are still ramping volume.  

The more I read comments by Ennay, the more I think she knows what she's talking about.  Ennay and AKTrail are, in my opinion, 2 of the smartest people on running message boards.

There are certain steps you need to take and, in many cases, you just can't go around it.  Well, you can; but most likely you'll face the concequences.  You can sprint, sprint, sprint all out for a very short period of time--like 4~8 minutes--SIMPLY BECAUSE THE RESEARCH SAYS IT IMPROVES VO2MAX MORE EFFICIENTLY, your body actually may not be ready for such workout and you would most likely face the consequences.  I know some people would still argue anyways but my suggestion to them is to go ahead and see it yourself.  That's why we have "Health and Nutrition" section here and you can ask any injury to so many qualified people out on-line instead of paying medical bill.

You bring the volume up gradually by running slowly at first to bring about your oxygen consumption ability high AS WELL AS gradually strengthen your muscles and tendons and ligaments in your legs.  SO NOW you can work on running fast safely and more effectively. 

There was this article just recently came out in Washington Post--something about do more intervals, interval training is probably better for beginners than long slow slog...etc.  Some physiologist or psychologist or whatever in Norway started saying this--in one article he was quoted by saying "We should IMMEDIATELY throw away old way of exercising (without explaining what "old way of exercising" is all about...???)"  I'm sure this article will hit RA very soon and it'll all stir things up and some people would go all bent out of shape...  It says; "Interval training is twice as effective as 'normal exercise..."  Once again, what is "normal exercise"?  It doesn't specify...  I'm sure they want to say "old-fashioned long slow distance base building workout" but probably intentionally avoiding to say that.  If you don't want to listen to a psydo self-claimed "expert", fine.  Like I said elsewhere, we were getting together this past weekend with Lorraine Moller, the Olympic bronze medalist, and Dick Brown, Ph D in exercise physiology who coached Mary Decker to the double gold medal performance.  We would all agree--interval training will improve your performance VERY QUICKLY.  No doubt about it.  You want a quick-fix; go ahead and do it.  You want to go through McDonald and pick up some Big Mac instead of taking time and cook nice fresh organic home-cooked dinner; perfectly fine.  Of course, there IS a consequence to that as well.

Our dog, a small Jack Russle Terrier, has been sick and we were worried about him.  He only weighs 18lbs and, since December, he lost 3lbs.  My wife said he's not eating anything but kept throwing up.  I thought he might be dead by the time I get back from Boulder...  Then my wife found something about commercialized dogfood vs., well, home-made dogfood.  So as soon as I got home yesterday, I cooked this "home-made dogfood" for him.  He gobbled it down 3 servings so far and hadn't thrown up once yet.  I couldn't believe how immediate the effect was.  This proves to me that this little stupid dog is smarter than some of the runners out there--he knows what's good for him.

We used to say, and I thought I said this somewhere else on this forum, running distances at slow pace is like squeezing an orange.  You squeeze and squeeze and squeeze...  You don't get any juice.  Doing speed work is like cutting one end of this orange.  Well-squeezed orange will produce a lot more juice than non-squeezed orange.  You can cut it open and squeeze juice any time--just like speed training.  But remember something; if your oxygen uptake level is very low, then you will get into oxygen debt at very slow speed.  In other words, "speed training" of not-so-well-conditioned runner is not that fast.  You can improve very quickly; but you will NEVER achieve the ultimate performance.  This is why some people plod along Yosso 800s at 10-minute-pace and call that "speed work". 

About 60 years ago, people (coaches, athletes and some sport medical people) thought it would be a good idea to reduce the volume and increase the intensity because, at the time, it made sense.  Why run 50 quarters (this was based on great Zatopek's training) at at 80 seconds when your race is 12~25 laps around the 400m track at 67-seconds?  It does make sence.  Of course, they failed to understand that Zatopek won everythingn and set records BECAUSE HE WAS RUNNING GREAT VOLUME not because he was training fast.  Several coaches came along in the 1960s and prove that marathon conditioning of long slow (relatively) distance is the way to go.  Now it seems the pendulum is swinging the other way again--in other words, we are regressing 60 years back...simply because the reserachers said that, by cutting open one end of an orange can get you "some" juice so much better than just squeezing it...