I believe in what I have read because there are many who know way more then I do.
My question is HOW does it work??
when I was in the military if I wanted to run in the fast group I ran in the fast group getting dropped every day until I didn’t get dropped anymore. On local group rides you get dropped until you get faster and dont get dropped anymore.
So if my current open marathon pace is a 9 min mile (i dont really know what it is), How will I get my open marathon time down to 8 min mile by running 9 min miles?
I am just looking for an answer to help me understand as I like to learn why I am doing things
I believe in what I have read because there are many who know way more then I do.
My question is HOW does it work??
when I was in the military if I wanted to run in the fast group I ran in the fast group getting dropped every day until I didn’t get dropped anymore. On local group rides you get dropped until you get faster and dont get dropped anymore.
So if my current open marathon pace is a 9 min mile (i dont really know what it is), How will I get my open marathon time down to 8 min mile by running 9 min miles?
I am just looking for an answer to help me understand as I like to learn why I am doing things
There is a trade off between distance and speed. The point of LSD is to run (or bike or swim) for a longer time to build endurance. You think Usain Bolt could run a world record marathon?
I’m not a coach, but I bug my coach with all sorts of questions to understand why I’m doing what they’re telling me to do:
To improve my swimming, I spent 3-4k a day, 5 days a week the entire summer, a lot of them going slowly enough to breathe bilaterally and focus on nailing parts of my technique that were identified as lacking. May not be the best way to improve, but it did me more good in a few months than a few years of hard intervals.
To improve my cycling, we build base with several +200km rides early in the season, and usually only one or two weekly rides, at any given point in the season, are hard.
Running is not that different. However, since there’s more impact involved, I’m guessing the extra training allowed by easy running pays off more.
Way back in the early 70’s when Arthur Lydiard coined the phrase LSD running those guys were fast. They were running 20 miles in under 2 hours and that was Long Slow Distance. They also did track workouts and fast tempo runs. That’s why Frank Shorter said that no one should ever run more than 2 hours in training. In 2 hours Shorter was finished and having a beer.
You won’t get faster by running 9 minute miles. You will build up you fitness base, but if you want to race faster, you have to train faster.
Great responses above. So much of running is about having the connective system to sustain hard training without getting injured.
Just a tip that I think is overlooked by most non-elite runners: strides and hill strides can play a gigantic role in developing efficiency to help you run those 8 minute miles (or whatever an individual’s goal is). So if you are doing an 80 minute LSD run, that’s awesome! What’s even better is 70 minutes plus 8 x 100 meters up a slight 2% hill (jog down recovery), working to a fast pace during each stride that helps you feel comfortable moving significantly faster than race pace.
TL;DR - Faster than race pace strides and short hills after runs are free speed, and in my experience, most athletes that incorporate them see almost-immediate gains.
Way back in the early 70’s when Arthur Lydiard coined the phrase LSD running those guys were fast. They were running 20 miles in under 2 hours and that was Long Slow Distance.
This. The internet is full of people who take concepts designed for fast runners and apply them to someone doing a couch to 5k, next thing you know they’re doing “LSD” workouts at 12 minute per mile pace.
All of my running is LSD, around 9 to 10 MPW. 30 miles a week. 1000 feet of hill climbing. Just ran the 10K in an olympic in 39:10. And I am old.
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I hope you thanked you parents after the race. Would you recommend that our surfing friend from New Jersey do all his mileage between 9 and 10 minutes to achieve his goal of a 3:30 marathon?
Way back in the early 70’s when Arthur Lydiard coined the phrase LSD running those guys were fast. They were running 20 miles in under 2 hours and that was Long Slow Distance. They also did track workouts and fast tempo runs. That’s why Frank Shorter said that no one should ever run more than 2 hours in training. In 2 hours Shorter was finished and having a beer.
You won’t get faster by running 9 minute miles. You will build up you fitness base, but if you want to race faster, you have to train faster.
That statement is too general to be applicable. Some people will get much faster running 9 minute miles, especially with significant volume. The purpose of LSD is to provide a volume overload. All training is about progressive overload.
Also, this is not an either/or proposition. Of course LSD works, even 9 minute miles (or slower for some people). However, faster training has a place in the training program too, and should be incorporated at the right times and at an appropriate dose.
Would you say adding a few miles at tempo pace at the end of my long run the same concept? For instance, I did 11 miles at 8:15 today and threw in 2 miles at 7:15 at the end of the run…
Now I do run on the treadmill 3 times a week after an hour of L2 spinning on my bike trainer for 10 minutes at 6:30 pace. :o)
It is the total package of what someone does which is why to say one cannot run fast on LSD running is just too narrow.
Is always interesting to me when some folks talk about things can only be done this way or that, when I ask for their race results,
they just become silent.
I believe in what I have read because there are many who know way more then I do.
My question is HOW does it work??
when I was in the military if I wanted to run in the fast group I ran in the fast group getting dropped every day until I didn’t get dropped anymore. On local group rides you get dropped until you get faster and dont get dropped anymore.
So if my current open marathon pace is a 9 min mile (i dont really know what it is), How will I get my open marathon time down to 8 min mile by running 9 min miles?
I am just looking for an answer to help me understand as I like to learn why I am doing things
I asked this same question last year sometime. I cannot find the thread. But in my experience, when I did my long runs at a slower pace, I raced at that slower pace. The running group MIT continues to espouse that the long run should be 60-90 seconds than your marathon goal pace and that if your other runs during the week are faster you will achieve the 60-90 seconds faster pace on race day. After experimenting with this - running slower on my long runs, my body adapted to this slower pace and I ran slower. I started running with the 9 min mile group and I moved up to the 8 min mile group. I do not believe that something magical happens on race day to make me 60-90 seconds per mile faster. I have to run my long runs at the goal pace. I am now training at the pace I plan to race.
Great way of putting it. The Alistair Brownlee training schedule posted by someone a while back had only like 45 minutes of hard running. Admittedly that was in February but I’m sure it doesn’t necessarily increase so much.