Forums >General Running>Need help with paces
I'm training for a marathon following HH Intermediate 1. As with most marathon plans, there are some runs that you are supposed to do at race pace, which is 10:20ish for a 4:30 finish. I understand that I should be doing my LR at a pace slower than race pace by 30-90 seconds slower but what about my other weekly runs? There is no official speedwork in this plan. I typically run my weekday runs at about 9:30-10:00, which is faster than race pace but the mileage is lower. Am I running these too fast since they are faster than race pace? Should I be slowing them down and would those runs be considered speed work at that point?
What is easy pace for you--if you just went our for an easy 4 or 5 mile run, what would that be?
Runners run
The infamous easy run pace. Something that is a very hard concept for many of us who start running later in life.
The concept is so foreign because running is hard when you are starting out. It's an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp. Easy run.
The general rule of thumb is that you would be able to carry on a conversation while running at an easy pace but not be able to sing a song.
Sometimes that will be a 10:30 pace, sometimes that could be a 9:30 pace. It isn't a specific pace, it's a specific level of effort.
I personally find that using a heart rate monitor helps me to quantify this and helps me to stick to an easy pace. Others think that heart rate monitors are the devil incarnate. If left to my own devices, I end up speeding up and speeding up and somewhere in there the pace crosses the boundary from easy to moderate. Starting out I tended to run all of my runs at a moderate to hard pace, but once I got my heart rate monitor I was able to make myself slow down. Even when I first got my heart rate monitor I was still pushing the borderline of moderate pace and thought that it was easy at the time. Now, a year after getting my heart rate monitor I am running about the same pace that I used to when I thought I was running easy, but now it's at 10 heart beats less per minute and actually really is an easy run. I'm finally getting to where I can run an easy run without my heart rate monitor, but if I quit wearing it for a few weeks, I still tend to find my pace speeding up and I'll end up pushing the boundary of a moderate run when I'm supposed to be running easy.
One thing I've read over and over is that beginners almost always tend to run their easy runs too fast so I wouldn't worry about how slow you are running on an easy day.
Take my advice with a grain of salt, I'm still trying to figure this out myself, but the one thing I would like to get across is that an easy pace should really be easy. You shouldn't even be thinking about breathing or anything like that. You should be carry on a full conversation without have to stop mid sentence to take a breath. When you get done you should be fully capable of going out and running several more miles immediately, you are stopping because you are done with the run, not because you are tired.
That's my 2 cents, probably not worth that much though.
Nathan
MTA: If you are following the intermedite plan you probably already know all of the above. I started typing and kept going and ended up writing this as much for myself as for anyone else. I was going to delete it, but decided to just leave it in case someone else struggles with this as much as I do and could actually benefit from it.
Age: 50 Weight: 224 Height: 6'3" (Goal weight 195)
Current PR's: Mara 3:14:36* (2017); HM 1:36:13 (2017); 10K 43:59 (2014); 5K 21:12 (2016)
9:30 - 10:00 seems to be conversational but I wouldn't say it's easy peasy. Anything slower than 10 I think is easy.
Figuring this out based on feel and body clues is key.
So I will go off the game board and ask a different question. Ha. You mention what I suspect is your marathon goal: 4:30. How did you get that? It is possible you are doing your easy runs too fast (though again, it depends on how you feel. Easy isn't a specific pace, it is a perception of effort). It is also possible that you are not, based on feel, and that the math you are doing is based on a goal that isn't the right goal.
So is Marathon pace supposed to be super easy?
Kind of a trick question, and it depends on what 'super easy' means to you. But at the beginning of the race, your race pace should absolutely feel easy and comfortable. As the miles go by, this pace will feel more difficult. The same pace.
Figuring this out based on feel and body clues is key. So I will go off the game board and ask a different question. Ha. You mention what I suspect is your marathon goal: 4:30. How did you get that? It is possible you are doing your easy runs too fast (though again, it depends on how you feel. Easy isn't a specific pace, it is a perception of effort). It is also possible that you are not, based on feel, and that the math you are doing is based on a goal that isn't the right goal.
Stevie, last year, I PRed a HM at 1:56:XX... I ran a marathon 2-3 weeks later with a goal of 4:30 but hit the wall, likely due to various strategies that went wrong that day and training the weeks before.I'll be racing another HM Feb 3rd. I'll have a better idea of what my fitness is like at that point. Due to the weather and shorter daylight, I haven't been as strong as my training. I figure I will just run my marathon in April to finish and run another one in fall as my goal race.
MTA: I know it may be strange to ask these questions after I've already run a marathon but I consider myself still very new and learning. I originally was following a more aggressive plan but had to drop back to HH Int. 1 cause I wasn't able to keep up.
For most of us in the 4 hr Marathon range, easy pace is equal to or faster than Marathon pace. Indicates that we are not well trained to run the marathon. I can run a 8:30 HM pace, but not a MP of 8:45 -8:50 as suggested by many calculators. That's because my mileage and the training I do is borderline adequate for Half Marathon (35 -40 MPW), but even that HM time is slower than predicted by my 5K time (both in the same training cycle), meaning that 35 Miles is probably just enough to race a 5-10K but not truly race a HM or longer Meaning I am better trained to run a 5K-10K than a HM or longer. If we are consistently running over 50 miles a week, then our easy pace will slow down out of necessity (no need to consciously slow down) and once tapered the MP will be faster. If Marathon pace does not feel super easy for the first few miles of the race, you are in for a long day if you try to keep up that pace (from my limited experience with only 2 marathons)
MTA reworded because someone might question if 35 MPW are required to run a 5K
Options,Account, Forums
The infamous easy run pace. Something that is a very hard concept for many of us who start running later in life. The concept is so foreign because running is hard when you are starting out. It's an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp. Easy run. The general rule of thumb is that you would be able to carry on a conversation while running at an easy pace but not be able to sing a song.
I believe that I could sing when running at an easy pace -- what I think is "easy pace" for me. Of course, that's just one data point, and maybe not a good one.
It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.
I could sing a song softly and chopping up some of the verses with shallow breaths, but not loud and full verses without breathing until the end of the stanza like if I was really singing in a chorus or something.
Not dead. Yet.
I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I have been wondering about this "easy" pace recently as well. Been thinking about starting a thread, but I'll just latch on here instead. If I run "easy" according to McMillan based on predicted 5k race time, it is not conversational. It's not hard either, but it's not totally comfortable. I kind of like running at that pace though; it feels good, and after 4 or 5 miles it feels challenging. I say "predicted" because my fitness has improved since my last race/time trial.
Then if I compare my heart rate to what they say it should be during an easy run; 60 - 70%, I'm even farther from baseline in the opposite direction. They basically want me to walk, and this is probably truly conversational. I have a hard time running below 80%, and if I did, I would be going so slow it would bore me to hell, and I feel like I wouldn't be making any progress.
So which easy is right? According to the "conversational" rule, the 60-70% rule is probably correct, but I have a hard time believing that you get as much benefit running at 60% as you do from running at 80%. And if I can run daily at 80% and not suffer any ill effects, and still run my hard runs hard, won't the faster pace make me faster in the long run? It seems to me that you should try to go at the fastest pace you can without affecting planned training sessions or injuring yourself.
I am a beginner and my fitness is improving rapidly at this point, so maybe that plays a role in this. It's hard to nail down a pace because in a few weeks or a month I can go faster than before. Also maybe the point is that it has less to do with physical conditioning more to do with just teaching yourself to run slower and be able to pace yourself for the long distance runs. Obviously for a marathon, you can't go out of the gate at 80%.
How can we know our limits if we don't test them?
I know I can sing at easy paces, because I often do.
I'm sure the people in my neighborhood LOVE this.
"When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical. Is it raining? That doesn't matter. Am I tired? That doesn't matter, either. Then willpower will be no problem." Emil Zatopek
Joggaholic
I know I can sing at easy paces, because I often do. I'm sure the people in my neighborhood LOVE this.
I had trouble figuring out my "easy pace" for a long time, until I learned that it really should be considered "easy effort", that's a big difference. Now I consider easy as: conversational, able to sing a few words at a time, mind can wander around and not pay attention to breathing or my legs, watch Netflix and follow the subtitles without falling off the TM ... etc
The impression I get is that this above really is the key.
I'm currently struggling with figuring out MP effort.