Does anybody run hard for every run? (Read 1594 times)

If you're running like 5X per week, you won't be able to recover.  Could you run hard every run?  Yes.  But not a lot more than you would in your normal 2-3X hard workouts per week.  You can't just add hard volume, especially if you're not doing the overall base to support it.

Is your wife slower than you?  Is it YOUR easy pace that causes problems or perhaps hers?

Over time, without the aerobic base build by easy runs your conditioning will deteriorate.  You can't maintain it indefinitely on a smattering of hard work each week.

However, you mention biking and tri's.  Now, if you are doing your aerobic base on the bike...granted this will require more hours than if you ran it....you can maintain decent fitness by doing most of your easy work on the bike and workouts running.  That should work OK.  However, in the long term, I would be a bit concerned that you are not fully conditioning your body to handle the rigors of hard workouts and you'll start to get "soft" from not enough running volume and become injury-prone.

For awhile now I've been forced to do about half of my running on a treadmill.  I recently did the longest on on the roads I have in quite awhile...I could feel it in my quads.  The treadmill is making my legs "soft".

Seth, you appear to have hastily have captioned your Musha's with the name Elixir 7.  I don't think people who run hard want to be injured. 

Borden, I don't think it's at all a good idea to run hard every run, or even most runs. 

My first thought was, "no", but then I remembered the FIRST program. It's 3 days of running/week and each workout is a hard workout. That doesn't mean all of the miles are hard. There is a w/u & c/d, but still 3 hard workouts/week is a lot for most people

I ran "hard" for every run when I was in high school and for a lot of the time in college. What does this mean? Basically hard intervals once or twice a week, tempo runs (~MP) every other day. I run my easy days a lot easier now (like 60s/mile slower.)

Sometimes I think this was a mistake, but on the other hand, I was going for it, and my body held up for the most part pretty well. It's easier to get away with as an 18-25 year old, but that doesn't mean that it's the best way to train.

Here's a nice article that criticizes the attitude I took in high school and college. This article suggests that I could have been much better by taking a hard/easy approach. Maybe it's even right, but we'll never know.

Lauren Fleshman has been dealing with ITBS by doing all her cardio work in the pool and sprinting all her running workouts. It is the only way she can run at present, according to her blog. 

That was too many words with no paragraph breaks, for me to be able to read through.

If you're running like 5X per week, you won't be able to recover.  Could you run hard every run?  Yes.  But not a lot more than you would in your normal 2-3X hard workouts per week.  You can't just add hard volume, especially if you're not doing the overall base to support it.

 

Is your wife slower than you?  Is it YOUR easy pace that causes problems or perhaps hers?

 

Over time, without the aerobic base build by easy runs your conditioning will deteriorate.  You can't maintain it indefinitely on a smattering of hard work each week.

 

However, you mention biking and tri's.  Now, if you are doing your aerobic base on the bike...granted this will require more hours than if you ran it....you can maintain decent fitness by doing most of your easy work on the bike and workouts running.  That should work OK.  However, in the long term, I would be a bit concerned that you are not fully conditioning your body to handle the rigors of hard workouts and you'll start to get "soft" from not enough running volume and become injury-prone.

 

For awhile now I've been forced to do about half of my running on a treadmill.  I recently did the longest on on the roads I have in quite awhile...I could feel it in my quads.  The treadmill is making my legs "soft".