The only way I seem to be able to run slow/easy causes me pains.
Lowering cadence makes me plant my foot for too long in a way that feels bad for the knee.
Lowering stride length means I am practically bouncing up and down.
A 3 hr marathon training plan estimates my easy/long runs at 4.50-5.30 per km.
Running more than 10k at even 4.50 feels harder (both aerobicly and muscular/skeletal) than running significantly faster, but I understand it’s not a great idea to always be hitting tempo type pace all the time.
Any advice on how to get some easy miles in appreciated.
Some obvious methods would be to run on softer surface (trail, dirt, track etc), and/or treadmill. Also, increase cadence deliberately when running slower to decrease oscillation.
Run harder on your hard days so that easy feels easy and you’ll want easy. Run w people you can talk with on those long easy runs. Keeps you motivated and engaged and not always “thinking” about it.
How much difference is your cadence between easy and hard runs.
Help me understand why you said running 4:50/k pace aerobically is hard?
More miles run = better performance. If you’re looking to really capture the bulk of your running potential, you have to run enough miles in training, and the best, safest way to get there is by running lots of slow miles, later sprinkled with faster work.
If you don’t think you’ll get faster by running almost all slow miles, work your way up to 90 mile per week of running all slow miles and get back to me on whether you improved or not.
The only way I seem to be able to run slow/easy causes me pains.
Lowering cadence makes me plant my foot for too long in a way that feels bad for the knee.
Lowering stride length means I am practically bouncing up and down.
Stand upright and tall. Get your weight forward and over your feet by leaning into the run from your ankles. Land with your foot under your body and moving back. Reduce your stride length. Maintain your cadence. Run on softer surfaces whenever you can.
More miles run = better performance. If you’re looking to really capture the bulk of your running potential, you have to run enough miles in training, and the best, safest way to get there is by running lots of slow miles, later sprinkled with faster work.
If you don’t think you’ll get faster by running almost all slow miles, work your way up to 90 mile per week of running all slow miles and get back to me on whether you improved or not.
I’m trying to understand why he thinks running slower is “hard”. The answers will show …it isn’t.
More miles run = better performance. If you’re looking to really capture the bulk of your running potential, you have to run enough miles in training, and the best, safest way to get there is by running lots of slow miles, later sprinkled with faster work.
If you don’t think you’ll get faster by running almost all slow miles, work your way up to 90 mile per week of running all slow miles and get back to me on whether you improved or not.
Totally agree. The amount of people I talk to about 80/20 running and they look at me blankly…hard to get your head around how running slow makes you go faster, but for yeah as soon as I switched from mostly med - high intensity running to high volume low intensity my times, even for 5km, improved.
I am more trashed from walking around Christmas shopping at a mall than I am a 10 mile run. For this reason, I do not like Christmas shopping. It is very hard on the body. No pink.
You could run 4 min walk one min for long runs. I found it hard to go slower than 830 miles so thats what I do. If I walk one min per mile I am at 830 mile on long runs. Each min of walking adds 30 sec per mile. Don’t feel nearly as beat up after long runs as I used to be.
Commitment to the process is all it takes. Look up Mafetone and run to your aerobic threshold. At first you will need to walk to control your heart rate at times. Six months later you will be running just as fast as you are today at 10 - 15 bpm lower than it would take you today.
I wouldn’t overthink your running form while running “slow”. After you build up your base, striders and tempo work will take care of that. That said, don’t do anything crazy wrong like over-stride while heal striking, you will get injured even running slow. At aerobic threshold your cadence should still be in the 180 +/- 20 spm range - likely closer to the bottom end.
I guess what’s happening is I’m putting so much thought and effort into changing cadence/stride that it makes my perceived effort feel higher. (I don’t know how to explain that easier runs leave me breathing hard at the end).