quote:<HR>Originally posted by BaDC3D:
bty:
I would try slowing your pace off the line. It sounds like you are jumping at the gun and then sputtering out after a while which in turn is killing your average.

http://This message has been edited by BaDC3D (edited Dec-05-2007).<HR>

Based on something you read in this thread, or elsewhere?

Brian

quote:<HR>Originally posted by Better than yesterday:

Based on something you read in this thread, or elsewhere?

Brian<HR>

Brian,
I have been a runner for 20 years. I have been an Assistant Coach of Junior High runners. If you have a tendency to slow dramatically over the course of a long distance run. All signs point to the fact that you are running to hard in the beginning. If you run to hard at first you will not be able to maintain that pace over the entire distance. I'm sure if you look it up you will be able to find any amount of info on the web.

I'm sorry. You've misunderstood my post. I didn't intend to tell you that I crash and burn after 6 miles. Rather, my times in longer races are much slower than in shorter races, with 10k being about the limit for a 7:00 mile pace. Perhaps if I trained more specifically for 15k and 10 mile races I wouldn't experience the drop-off.

PS. I have also coached Track and Field - I got my first T&F head coaching job 20 years ago, in fact, about when you started running .

bty

That is correct. I started running again 6 years ago on January 1, 2002. I began running in 1977, but left running and training regularly in 1992 when my first son was born. (This has absolutely nothing to so with the original post, or anything else about this thread.) I was a discus thrower and shot putter in HS, coached all aspects of T&F - not just running - and refused to just go running with the team the way the guy I replaced - my head coach in HS - had done. I coached for my paycheck, he ran.

You're not trying to be a jerk and are trying to be helpful.

My last 15k race was around 76:00. Not fast, but not a disaster of pacing either. Hit the first 5k mark in 24:00. Hit the second (which was almost all trails) in about 50:00 (26:00 over the 5k). Ran the last 5k in about 26:00. I should have been able to return to a sub 8:00 pace over the last 5k, as it was back on the road, but couldn't/didn't. So yes I went out faster than my average pace for that race, but no faster than I should have - the McMillan calculator suggests that I should run a 15k around 68:00 if trained properly for the distance, based upon a 5k PR of 21:18 6 months earlier. I felt that I'd trained properly for the 15k, as I was in the tail end of HM training. A 68:00 5k is mid 7's. I ran mid 8's, starting just under 8.

I still think that it's interesting that there is such a drop off in my times over the 10k to 15k distance. I think it's probably mental, or that I've just had a couple of bad races. And in response to the OP's question, I'll say that for me, it was fairly easy to run the 8-9 mile pace after just a few years of regular, committed training, but very difficult to carry that out to the half-marathon distance. After two attempts at the half, I' around 10:00 pace for that distance.

Brian

http://This message has been edited by Better than yesterday (edited Dec-07-2007).

Wonderful encouraging words for the OP from an ultra enthusiast.

bcc594 - other than tempos and striders, very little speedwork. I find interval training of any distance shorter than 1 mile to be too risky for me - I wind up with some sort of injury that derails my training; so I stick with tempos of up to 30-35 minutes (would have like to get that out to 40 minutes but didn't progress that far), and I did have a couple of nice progression runs of 8 - 10 miles in there as well.

Brian

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