Forums >Running 101>Upping Distance
One day at a time
I've got a fever...
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.
Jeff is right increase by 10% per week but since you are at low mileage right now I don't know that the 10% rule applies to you yet. I do not do the 10% increase in mileage until I get to 20 miles a week.
Well, there's the old 10% rule, but I don't think that's really valid at low mileage. Daniels has a rule of thumb which is that you can increase your weekly mileage one mile per each day/week you run (i.e. if you run 5 days/week, you can safely up your weekly mileage by 5 miles). I was looking at your log and noticed you list most of your runs as tempo runs. Technically speaking, a tempo run is 20 minutes or so at somewhat slower than 10k race pace. More qualitatively, it's a comfortably hard run done at a pace that you could race for about 50~60 minutes or so. A tempo run should leave feeling like you could do more, but glad that you don't have to. What is the effort level of these runs? Are they pretty hard? I raise this concern because if you really are doing nearly every run at tempo pace, you're running too fast, and this will lead to injury. There's a mantra around this site: Run lots. Mostly easy. Sometimes hard. And it really works. Most of your runs should be at a pace that you could sustain a conversation at while running. Slowing down helps prevent injury, and it allows you to run more. And a lot of slow miles will do way more your race times than a few fast ones. For example, you say that you want run 3 miles in 24:29 or less. Plug that time into the McMillan Calculator and you get a recommended easy pace of 9:58~10:28.* Slow down, run more miles, and your running will take off. MTA: *Please note that using McMillan's or other running calculators, you are really supposed to enter in your current race time, not your goal -- all of the training paces are based on what you currently can do. However, since you didn't have any recent races to plug in, I used your goal time instead.
All makes sense....I'm running all that at about 8:45-9:00mpm. And I definitly couldn't talk while doing it. I definitly try to slow down but run more. Now will that also help when I want to turn it up and run hard like for a 5K or something like that?
Dave
Now will that also help when I want to turn it up and run hard like for a 5K or something like that?
I ran a mile and I liked it, liked it, liked it. dgb2n@yahoo.com
Right on Hereford...
Technically speaking, a tempo run is 20 minutes or so at somewhat slower than 10k race pace. More qualitatively, it's a comfortably hard run done at a pace that you could race for about 50~60 minutes or so. A tempo run should leave feeling like you could do more, but glad that you don't have to.