Decreasing pace and its effect on training (Read 1144 times)

In the short term, your 5k may suffer a bit especially if you don't keep at least one faster workout in there per week. However, in your mileage range, increasing mileage is the #1 factor you can control to lead to faster 5K in the medium-long term (think in terms of 4-6 months or longer). You won't improve long-term if you hate it and either stop or skip runs as a result. You're better off keeping your easy days easy, getting a good hard workout in once a week or so.

Your background sounds a lot like mine. When I first started out my daily runs were all run at the same exact pace. I trained for my first half marathon this way. In fact, my race time was within a few minutes of my training run for the distance, because apparently, like the ignorant fool I was, I was running my long runs at tempo pace. Duh. Fast forward a few months, learn from better runners on RA, read some stuff, find out I'm supposed to slow down on most of my runs--especially my long runs. After my half, my focus was to improve my 5k time. I haven't beaten my PR yet, but I've come close. Better than that, I've raced better than the race at which I set my PR--paced myself more consistently, had a better ending kick, on a more difficult course, in much tougher conditions (August in Florida is pretty bad). I'm pretty certain when I run the course I set my PR on, I'll beat it. All this running my easy and long runs at closer to an 11min pace instead of 9:20. I think, long term, the slow-down training routine has benefits. First of all, it lowers your risk of injury because you're not going all-out all the time. Second, like you're discovering, it lowers the chance of burnout because it changes the focus. Instead of "beating your last time," you're free to change it up. Run 3 one day, 4 the next, 2 the day after. Hey, run a different route one day. It doesn't matter if it's hillier or trailier because you're not going for time. In fact, it's better because you'll use different muscles. No, you probably won't shave another minute off your 5k right away, but that kind of improvement would probably be hard to maintain anyway. You might set a short-term goal for your next race (25:30?) and a long-term goal (breaking the 25:00 barrier?) for later down the road. 1. I don't think your training pace necessarily directly affects your 5k time the way you fear. Your body will know at the start of a race that this is not training day. At least this has been my experience. 2. For all the reasons I mentioned, I think slowing down your training pace helps. 3. If you're at 20 mpw, then I think you can probably go ahead and start doing some speedwork. Why not dedicate one run a week to a hard effort in regards to speed and one run a week to a hard effort in regards to distance? These runs can be 3 days apart to spare your legs. You're already at a 7-mile long run, so you're well on the way to building up to 10ks and your HM goal. Sorry for the babbling response!

From personal experience, yeah, your 5k time will probably slow down as you increase mileage. I have to run 2 miles at 15:20 to max my army pt test. Last year I was getting 15:20-15:40 range very consistently. I then decided to actually do some running during the week and now I"m up to 30 mpw with my runs being slower but longer. My 2 mile is now in the 16 minute range and its very depressing, but I"m hoping this increase in mileage will eventually work. I just did my first 8.2 miler this morning and there is no way I could have run that far last year, so I'll take my couple seconds off the 2 miler for now and enjoy the fact that I can run waay longer than before!

You have two types of muscle fibers, slow twitch (type I) and fast twitch (type II). You actually have two types of fast twitch fibers, Type IIa and Type IIx (x = it keeps changing as they gain more info, used to be Type IIb) Type IIx are always anaerobic. They are also the fastest twitch. You use them to jump, throw, etc. Type IIa are "convertible" fibers. If you train them to be anaerobic, they will be anaerobic. Run track intervals too short and too fast, they become anaerobic. If you train them to be aerobic, they will be mostly aerobic. The 5k is almost completely aerobic. How to train type IIa to be aerobic? For easy runs less than 1 hour, your body uses mostly Type I slow twitch fibers. After about an hour, as your type I fibers tire, you start to recruit more and more Type IIa fibers and train them to be aerobic. What happens when you train your type IIa to be aerobic? You get faster when you run 5k's! (obviously if you run 100 miles a day, youll be dead and flat, so there is a limit)

Fixed.

NOBODY is successful at 5k off of 20 mpw....and I'm sure it JUST my opinion. Lydiard, Daniels, and every other coach on the planet would surely disagree with me and assert that running more than 20 mpw will slow down your 5k

Increased mileage will improve performances in everything from the 800 and up. More miles means more aerobic strength, which shouldn't slow down your performance in the 5k, a race is that is 95-97% aerobic. to tell someone running 20 mpw that a mileage increase will slow down their 5k is asinine IMO

Whatever dude, I'm saying what happened to me. I said from my personal experience that's what happened. My LT told me from his experience (he races 5 or 10ks) he said I need to not just do long and slow but add speed work to keep my time low for my 2 miler. So if I was just to get my 30 miles a week by doing 6 miles at a slower pace, my time is not going to decrease right away. Yeah, eventually it will because getting more miles is better than just doing 2 miles fast every day. My time decreased the first time I ran it because my body wasn't used to running fast because all I was doing was long and slow trying to build my base mileage. Geez....I don't think that logic is all that asinine. Last year all I did was run a few times a week, 3.5 miles around 30 mins. Ran faster. Now I do usually 6 miles in about an hour every day. Ran slower.

(post removed; I'm staying out of this)

I didn't even see your post, but I can guess what it said - so allow me:

Increased mileage will improve performances in everything from the 800 and up. More miles means more aerobic strength, which shouldn't slow down your performance in the 5k, a race is that is 95-97% aerobic. to tell someone running 20 mpw that a mileage increase will slow down their 5k is asinine IMO

Carps, the problem is not the substance of your post; its the delivery. Your first two sentences were great. The last sentence was a wholly unnecessary personal attack. The word "asinine" is not very nice. You could have even left the sentence and just changed that word. How about: misguided. Or: incorrect. Words have meanings. Use nice ones, unless you've got a good reason not to. And for the record, you're not necessarily entirely right on the substance, either. Yes, in the long-term, for almost any distance past 800m, nothing beats mileage. But its perfectly possible that a beginner runner could see a short-term decrease in short-race performance after upping the mileage and losing the speedwork. If that "asinine" poster sticks with the 30 miles per week, you're undoubtedly correct - their 5k times will naturally decrease.

NOBODY is successful at 5k off of 20 mpw....and I'm sure it JUST my opinion. Lydiard, Daniels, and every other coach on the planet would surely disagree with me and assert that running more than 20 mpw will slow down your 5k

"Nobody" and "always" are sucker bets. Few things are that universal. There are probably some very fast 5kers who do less than 20 miles per week. Change all-caps NOBODY to "In general," and again you're right. But again the insulting tone. Is it necessary when you're right? Oh - and you need to define "successful." Don't you? Are there elite 5k'ers who do 20 miles per week. I doubt it. If there are, there aren't many. Are there "casual" runners who meet their 5k goals on 20 miles per week. Absolutely. Now play nice. ----------------- How'd I do, SrLopez? Right track?