Looks like i need to redefine what i consider "slow" for myself.

All these years I have watch other runners and critiqued their technique and form (as to whether i observed something that i might want to adopt) and now it seems as though the slow running has it's on metrics.

For a few days after a race or hard effort, I notice that my HR doesn't go up as much during subsequent sessions (granted that I try to keep it slow and easy for several days).

However, my problem is that more often, my HR goes up too much on day-to-day training sessions, and now I'm trying a new plan that limits pace based on HR.

I've been running for 30 yrs and cycling for 20 yrs and other than instituting a taper, I've never found a rhyme or reason to training (other than notations for illness, stress, sleep, etc.).

Allow me to blow your mind a bit more :-D

Taper can be tricky. It's connotation largely evolved as we know it because we overtrain and then need to recover from that overtraining in order to assure that what fitness we do have can be expressed on race day. I know a number of folks that don't taper... and then win Ironmans. Phil wrote into Apollo Race Day (software that is discontinued) a neat feature that would calculate an effect curve. Basically estimating how far out from an event a training session would have a maximal impact on the race. For some folks this was 3-6 days out. How this would manifest is if an athlete had an effect curve of 3 days on the bike and was racing an IM, they would go do a simulation ride 3 days before the race. Seems messed up but the proof in that pudding was an 8.47 debut IM effort by a rather fast female in his stable. After the apex of the effect curve is reached then they would just "taper" those last couple days. For someone whose effect curve peaked 3 weeks out from an event, yes, their taper would resemble what we think of when we hear the word.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

The confidence intervals of the time constants in Banister's model are so wide as to make the effect curve essentially meaningless, at least on an individual basis:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16608765

So what you are saying is that some athletes have a really short recovery time in relation to the overload that they have injected into their (specific event) training?

I did not know who this is so I did a Google search and it led me back to this post by you http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ost=6519804#p6519804
Thanks for this because it is always nice to get some reassurance on the training path selected. Of the ways to skin the cat it is always my hope not to butcher the cat in the process.
Then again I've butchered a quite a few through the years by trial and error. :-)

My N=1 for going slow to get fast vs. going hard often:

I started triathlon my junior year of HS after being consistently injury prone in XC for 3 seasons (17:50 5km PR, 4:48 for the mile). When I started, I assumed injuries were my way of life with running, and that I would likely never be able to run more than 20-25mpw consistently. At the time, I would do a few (3 or 4) 4mi steady runs (6:30 pace) throughout the week, and one max effort 20min tempo run off the bike. Maybe an easy 3-4mi recovery run one day. Nothing long, and not much slow, if ever. Results: typically 18:50ish off the bike for 5km, results trailed off significantly over 5km although I was only racing sprints at the time.

3 years later, had been running 25-30mpw typically with some steady runs, maybe some progression runs, but still not slowing down on easy days much. I decided that I was going to slow the hell down and run more, out of necessity due to fatigue from other life changes. I ran 40+ mpw, but rarely ran faster than 8min/mi. Was wondering the entire time if I was losing fitness and going nowhere. Results: 18:20s off the bike in 85-90deg heat, low 17min for 5km, much better results for 10km+ (low 36min equivalents in 99% humidity/80deg heat, definitely would've been <36:10 on a flat/cool day). Much better running off the bike, and wasn't afraid to push the bike because I had better run fitness.

I'll allow myself to run hard at the end of maybe 2 runs per week, for 1-2mi - last night I closed an 8.5mi run in 5:30 for a mile, started building from 1.75mi out. Just enough fast time (in the context of 40+ mpw) to stay in touch with speed.

I struggle to train with friends of similar of even slower ability, because they run too fast on easy days for me. I have no shame in running 9-10min miles.

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"Don't you have to go be stupid somewhere else?"..."Not until 4!"

Ok, so you have found improvement and are happy with your progress by running slower miles. Now, say, you want to drop that 5k off the bike from 18:20 to 17:00 or faster. How would you go about the training? Speed up the slower runs or do more speed workouts? I’m not worried about losing fitness, I’m worried about not improving.

I think that right now my goal is to keep building mileage to the 55-60 range (over a long period of time, maybe this whole year!) and consistently sit there for a long time. When I get comfortable with 55-60mpw + some short strides and progression runs, I'll look to add in tempo and maybe some modest track work in the 4-6 weeks before racing.

I would not jump to speed up the easy days. Let it happen naturally. If you're using heart rate, that will be easy to do, because your pace at 150bpm (or whatever number you've decided to cap yourself at one easy days) will slowly drop over time. I would be more inclined to make my hard days much harder, and leave the true easy days very slow.

Another thing I've found for myself is that it helps for me to alternate reasonably long days with pretty short days. For example, if I want to run 2hrs across 2 days, I feel and recover better if I do 80-90min the first day and only 30-40min the next. Typically the shorter day would also have a ride. Over time the goal would be to do 80-90min one day and up to 60 the next on a consistent basis.

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"Don't you have to go be stupid somewhere else?"..."Not until 4!"

Ah, ok. Right now my coach is having me run all easy runs in Zone 2, which is 144-152 bpm and ~6:30-7:00 pace. I’m doing 45-55 mpw but I’m not seeing how this will help my 5k sprint time. My main focus is building strength for the 70.3 half marathon so I get the slow miles. I just think I should be doing hard repeats as well. My fastest sprint 5k is 15:25. How will I improve that if I’m running all or nearly all my miles 90 seconds slower than that pace?

You're much faster than me, so take this with a grain of salt of course, but I would say to take a look at how a lot of the top runners of the past have trained. Lots of mileage slower than 6.5min pace for guys who raced marathons at 5min/mi.

To keep (or even improve) speed you might try some short hill sprints or striders after a few easy runs each week. You're clearly already a fast runner so I would guess you've done these many times. Doing 4-6x100-150m pretty fast a few times (3-4) each week adds up over time. It's an extra 1-1.5mi of free top end speed work every week. This is one thing that I'm guilty of slacking off on, and I would bet that simply adding them in with diligence would drop my times substantially with very little overhead.

Ultimately, and you definitely know this, your coach probably has the answers and has a bigger plan in mind.

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"Don't you have to go be stupid somewhere else?"..."Not until 4!"

Yes, that’s true with striders and I do them often. I’m trying to change how I run and become a more well-rounded athlete so I’m asking questions. I don’t want my coach to think i don’t trust him or his training so I ask here for some insight. Thank you!

Thank you for sharing.

Honestly, it’s this type of variation that is confusing for many people much of the time because your slow runs are what I’d consider a tempo run (~8-9 min/mile).

When I was in my 20s then tempo was 6:45, but that was 20 yrs ago.

See how that marky v says he runs 15 min miles on his slow runs and he’s a former pro triathlete.

Rick doesn't seem to post to the 'net anymore, but he used to quite active, both on the wattage list and here. You could try searching this forum for posts by "rmurphy" to read more of his thoughts.

I think another issue is what different people interpret "tempo" to be. I like it to be something around half marathon pace these days, because I feel like I can recover from that more quickly than if I were to use 15k effort or similar. A few years ago a "tempo" was max sustainable effort, more of an excuse to race in training than anything else. More or less a time trial. In the context of higher volume, I can't do that and avoid injury, so I tend towards HMP, with 15k effort being the fastest I would consider tempo running.

I'm sure there's an accepted definition for tempo out there somewhere, but everyone seems to approach it differently.

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"Don't you have to go be stupid somewhere else?"..."Not until 4!"

Your approach may have gotten you a BQ time but is not a recipe for long term success. It will eventually lead to burnout, illness, injury, or all of the above.

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I'm quiet happy to do 9min/miles but 15min is walking.

Good call. It used to be a proxy for "threshold pace" but now more and more I hear people using it to describe something along the lines of "sweet spot", around 75-90% of threshold power (from a cycling perspective).

"Overtraining" is another wishy-washy term. I see MarkyV using the term here to describe what sounds like being fatigued from the accumulation of significant-but-routine training stress. While I always prefer the term to mean "overtraining syndrome" or a pathological, acute condition where the body no longer responds to training stress in a normal way.

Andrew,

I am curious and I am also very much a layman with respect to this subject. In regards to your comment "more than one way to skin a cat" are you suggesting that High Intensity could be just as effective as LSD? I had always gone the high intensity route mostly due to time constraints. I tried the BarryP run plan a few years back but didn't get an appreciable gain, in fact I felt I was slower. I get that I am N=1 and maybe I didn't give the BarryP plan enough time. All that said I have read number of articles recommending high intensity for guys 50+ lately ( not tri specific) and was curious as to your opinion on this.

PS. I have been on the form for years and have always appreciated that people with your credentials have always been so accessible. So thanks to you and some others.....

Let's say that you'd been building for a peak at a 15K. You performed well (based on you experience and expectations) at the 15K. How long would you expect to take to recover from that effort?

I am curious when you mention being time constrained. What is you example of time constrained as in per day or weekly?

For instance I thought I was time constrained with a 9 to 10 hour weekly / 60 to 90 minutes week days for endurance training (cycling only) and longer for weekends. I do a pyramidal Lydiard approach with submaximal sustained efforts and I am 54. I am not trying to suggest changing your path or approach. I am just curious of the time constraint.

I can budget 3.5 - 4 hours/week to running. If I don't incorporate some speed work, I don't go anywhere. Spending 20% of the time around race pace and the remainder at 80% of race pace, usually does the trick. Typically 3x2k @95% in a session and 8x400m @105% in another works fine, provided that the remainder is actually ran @80%

Bingo!

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

I don't think Lydiard is fully cross compatible with cycling vs running in all disciplines. It is also certainly not compatible with people not having double digit hours a week to train but also wanting to be fast. There are very distinctly different failure modes to over training running versus cycling. Running is an impact sport. Cycling is not.

I also do not consider long and ultra distance cycling time trial (Ironman for example) to be a majority of traditional cycling training. It is a very unique subset. The typical road race time trial or time trial series is up to a max of about an hour for a pro.

Tom Dumoulin wouldn't have won the world time trial championships on a diet of training like that. Even though it was a time trial.

There is a risk/reward and law of diminishing returns for us folks short on time that utilize higher intensity training. You walk the bleeding edge of the risk of hurting yourself to get as close to the same gains as you can as the guy spending 2x the time per week.

I avg about 5 to 6 hrs a week on the bike. Right now, if I keep up the power and weight changes, I stand to get to a 4.5w/kg by this time next year.

There's people locally that do two long group rides per week (for example). Usually a weeknight 30 to 35 and a weekend century. Those two total probably 130mi and 11 hours at a B group ride pace.

I recognized them, nice people, and rode with them a while at a big fundraiser ride. They stayed together for about 25mi at the main group's A-pace. But then started falling apart because they couldn't hold an A-pace on the rollers and hills. I joined the break-group and we finished probably 15min ahead of them on a 50mi route.

Point being, you have to have some high intensity work as part of your diet at some point and time.

A quote from a Durian rider video about a much maligned doper:
"If you are not trying to snap the bottom bracket out of your bike when you are pushing then you are just too much of a #$%%^.""

You know, deep down, if you are a road racer........that quote has some truth to it.