No NZ is nothing like Australia  but yes you cant come sorry.

oh thank goodness.

 

Yeah , it's a shame they cancelled. I wonder if it had anything to do with securing sponsorship and the like. I found it quite demotivating seeing events get cancelled on the calendar then wellington had a postponed status and your left wondering what's the point.

Was great news when it was confirmed, like Rotovegas for you I'm sure.

Last big week of training for me. 70km week with long run of 32k then start tapering. The weather has been fantastic here the last couple of weeks! Can't last and those infamous Wellington northerlies will ramp up as spring approaches...

Hope the long run goes well and enjoy the taper!

***

My week was continued rebuilding, focusing on using both legs equally.

53 miles, 1500 yards of swimming, 15 "miles" of pool-running.
M: 5.5 "miles" of pool-running and upper body weights/core.
T: 10 miles, including 6 gentle Iwo Jima hill repeats (about 2:20 up, 90 second easy jog, 30 second gentle stride, and 80 second jog to bottom of hill). Followed with leg strengthwork and streaming yoga.
W: 4.5 miles easy (9:46), streaming yoga, and 7.5 miles aerobic (9:06) plus drills and four gentle hill strides
Th: upper body weights/core and 5.5 "miles" of pool-running in the morning; streaming yoga in afternoon.
F: 10 miles easy (9:12) followed by drills, strides, and streaming yoga.
Sa: 12 miles, including 4x.5 miles fairly hard with 0.25 mile jog - splits were 3:21, 3;26, 3;20, 3:17, with 2:30-2:40 recovery between each. Followed with full recovery, and then 6x30 seconds hard, 30 seconds easy. 1500 yards swimming after.
Su: 8.5 easy (9:38), followed by drills, then streaming yoga and 4 "miles" of pool-running.

Magrawlas: Fingers crossed the weather stays nice for your race.

DW: Solid rebuilding week. Based on Saturday's run things must be feeling pretty good.

jhudak: Solid mileage and nice tempo run.

Another week of heat and humidity around here. Early in the week it looked like Friday morning would be pretty good with a dew point of only 60 F, so I planned to do a workout then, but as the week progressed the forecast got worse. Ended up with a DP around 66. I had planned 4 x 1600m but only got through 2 and downgraded the remainder to 800m reps. Overall I'm pretty happy with it considering the conditions. Today's long run was brutal; think I lost close to 10 lbs during it.

Some positive news: Bucks County marathon sent out a notice that they are fully approved to proceed on Nov. 8. That one is at the bottom of my list but if the others are cancelled I will happily run it.

Total distance: 70.08 mi

Question for the group, and this is probably for cal and DW the most given how slowly they run their easy pace: is there ever an easy pace where you say "this is just too slow?" I'm not talking about a recovery run the day after a Quality day. Those, I'm not sure there really is such a thing as too slow. However, I'm in base building right now, and my easy runs are starting to get to be 2:30+ behind marathon pace. Normally I wouldn't think much about this, but during a base period it seemed to be getting too slow. I know on these forums we are usually in the camp that easy pace can't be too slow, but clearly it can: if I did my easy runs at a 13:00 pace, that would be too slow. I've always been careful not to be too fast on my easy runs, so I've focused on that so much that I don't know the other bound.

I plan on adding some tempo runs next week as I think this may be a cause of my easy pace getting too slow, but curious on other thoughts.

Question for the group, and this is probably for cal and DW the most given how slowly they run their easy pace: is there ever an easy pace where you say "this is just too slow?" I'm not talking about a recovery run the day after a Quality day. Those, I'm not sure there really is such a thing as too slow. However, I'm in base building right now, and my easy runs are starting to get to be 2:30+ behind marathon pace. Normally I wouldn't think much about this, but during a base period it seemed to be getting too slow. I know on these forums we are usually in the camp that easy pace can't be too slow, but clearly it can: if I did my easy runs at a 13:00 pace, that would be too slow. I've always been careful not to be too fast on my easy runs, so I've focused on that so much that I don't know the other bound.

 

I plan on adding some tempo runs next week as I think this may be a cause of my easy pace getting too slow, but curious on other thoughts.

I have a lower limit myself. I also sometimes use heart rate. Isn’t it crazy hot and humid where you’re at right now so anything is magnified by 13 plus lack of sleep? If you slow down to 9:00/mi pace you’re going to really limit your long runs if you still need that 90 minute rule. Is slowing down feeling easy? Are you able to hold a conversation out loud at the pace? Why are they slowing down so much and how does it compare to last year? 

my week:

5 runs up/down a hill about 3 miles long and 440 ft high. 
one 2:00:00 long run that was a little over 14 miles

49.x miles. I think about 6 hours of running.

oh and I bought new Nike Outlet Store Pegasus 34s. Same show I have been running in. MAN are new shoes TIGHT.

Question for the group, and this is probably for cal and DW the most given how slowly they run their easy pace: is there ever an easy pace where you say "this is just too slow?" I'm not talking about a recovery run the day after a Quality day. Those, I'm not sure there really is such a thing as too slow. However, I'm in base building right now, and my easy runs are starting to get to be 2:30+ behind marathon pace. Normally I wouldn't think much about this, but during a base period it seemed to be getting too slow. I know on these forums we are usually in the camp that easy pace can't be too slow, but clearly it can: if I did my easy runs at a 13:00 pace, that would be too slow. I've always been careful not to be too fast on my easy runs, so I've focused on that so much that I don't know the other bound.

 

I plan on adding some tempo runs next week as I think this may be a cause of my easy pace getting too slow, but curious on other thoughts.

I think it's very very individual and, honestly, I never asked myself a question - when slow is actually too slow. I have HR data for this kind of stuff - if I ran at my recover HR, whatever pace is -that's the pace. When I was doing high mileage weeks, my pace was sometimes more than 3 minutes slower than my MP. Is it too slow? I have no clue, but it's at a recovery HR.. I would say, my recovery pace is approximately at least two minutes slower than MP, but if it's 80 oF and humid, I don't think I would consider MP+3 as too slow for me. But again - our age is way too different - I am actually pretty happy I can run and I don't have any injuries (knock 3 times on the wood).

I also looked at my historical running data (wanted to know how fast/slow I was running 200s, 400s and 1T few years back) and I think I noticed that after few weeks running faster workouts my easy pace became faster. So, maybe you can think about doing 8-10 strides 3 times a week? Might be worth a try... That's all I can think of.

So...

As an absolute, without context statement....no, I don't think 2:30 slower than marathon pace is too slow for an easy run on its face.

I do think that there is context here.  What are you defining as "marathon pace?  Your PR pace?  Your future goal pace?  Or the pace you could hold in today's weather conditions and fitness? - those are often three different things.

For example - yesterday I did an easy 8.5 at around 9:40 pace - nearly three minutes slower than my current marathon PR pace of 6:47.  But...I can also tell you that my current marathon pace in yesterday's weather and my current fitness would honestly be closer to 7:40 ish.  If you look at it that way, there was only about a 2 minute gap.

Writing more generally - I think that the best easy pace for a runner is the pace/effort at which you're optimizing the balance between the fitness gains of the run and your need for recovery.  Those fitness gains only increase slightly as you speed up the easy runs, while the recovery needs of the run increase more steeply with speed for most (especially as you age).  Thus, from a cost-benefit perspective, for most of us it's better to keep those easy runs slower.

As for when is too slow?  In the short term, it's when your gait is falling apart (though I'd also note that running slowly with good form is a very good running drill).  In the longer term, it's if you feel worse in your workouts after a slower easy run.

FWIW, I was stuck at a plateau of around a 3:10 marathon, 87-88 half, mid-to-low 19s 5K for several years.  At that time I also did my "easy runs" anywhere between 7:50-8:20 pace.

I started following a fast friend on Garmin Connect a few years ago- a guy that consistently runs 2:27-2:28 for the marathon.  So...5:37-5:38 pace.  I was surprised to see he did most of his easy runs around 8 minute pace - sometimes a bit slower.

And I thought...."if a sub-2:30 marathoner is doing his runs at 8:00 pace, I should probably be a bit slower than that"  So...I experimented with slowing down my easy runs to where they are now.  And I started to feel fresher and to absorb my workouts better.  And the PRs started to roll in.

Of course, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data."