Wow! A thread whose time has come. Welcome aboard.

Not much time right now to write and respond, but I'll make quick notes:

*) Stevebur: you're absolutely right about tempo run pace. 6:40- 6:45 was aspirational. My tempo run pace right now is--well, I did two tempo runs last week: 5 miles @ 6:58 pace and 6 miles @ 7:07 pace, the latter after a 7.5 mi. warmup as part of my fast-finish long run. My lactate threshold is right around 6:55, I'd bet. That 10K @ 6:49 pace was, as I say, not quite flat-out. (I ran 7:00 pace for the first two miles, then picked it up.)

*) Long runs: yes!! I've run a two-hour long run (15-16 miles) almost every Sunday for the past three months. Incalculable benefits. But yes: it's clear that if I can boost 35-45 mpw to 50-55 mpw (which is how I trained as a 20-something), I'll see times drop

*) 10-mile tempo run: well, that's not far from what I do on my long runs right now: 7 or 7.5 out, slowly accelerating, then 7 hardish (7:18 - 7:35 pace) miles back in. I expect to continue this, and perhaps increase the length of that stamina-pace portion

*) Greenman: you are frightening, which is to say truly inspiring. Your comeback story puts the rest of us to shame. My 10K has dropped from 47 to 42; yours has dropped from 55 to 40. Awesome. I've looked briefly at your on-line running log--and discovered that you ran the White Rock Lake Pancake breakfast 5-miler, which is where I ran my 34:35 last year; your time is enviable. Could you distill your training principles into a few pithy advisories, so we don't have to comb through your logs?

Keep it up, guys! (and gals...)

Stevebur:

We're seeing eye to eye on this stuff. There are different tempo run paces for different-length runs. I've been greatly helped in understanding all this stuff by some postings at Letsrun.com--postings by the mysterious Tinman. He figures paces in terms of % of 5K race pace. If I'm not wrong, the three tempo paces he gives are:

5K pace divided by .93: "fast" tempo pace (20 - 30 min)
5K pace divided by .90: "medium" tempo pace, a.k.a. half-marathon pace (40 - 60 min)
5K pace divided by .87: "steady state" tempo pace, a.k.a. marathon pace (70 - 80 min)

I may be wrong about that .87. In any case, working backward from my 5K @ 6:26 pace, I had three tempo training paces:

6:56
7:09
7:22

Something like that. I know the 7:09 is correct; I think the other two may be slightly off.

Then there's something called "aerobic threshold," which is one minute slower than 5K pace--i.e., slightly slower than marathon pace.

The point is, all these are general guidelines. McMillan has slightly different paces. But the general idea is sound, and these percentages of 5K pace are workable.

In the past, I've spent a fair bit of time running that slower steady state / MP speed but relatively little time deliberately running those sustained faster paces. In any case, I agree with you: stamina running is crucial. Tinman says that he finds the most effective pace for aerobic development to be between half-marathon and marathon pace. That, too, is a nice little guideline to mull over.

I get restless, frankly, running long runs unless I'm pushing the pace a bit by the halfway point, trying to work the edge, trying to find a place where suddenly my pace has dropped and I'm really flying along. If anything, I tend to run too hard on the second half of most long runs and would probably benefit from backing off now and then. (I run alone and like to play the edge, since I'm not conversing with anybody and don't need to breathe.)

In the interest of scientific rigor, I thought I'd pull my copy of DANIELS'
RUNNING FORMULA off the shelf and learn a little more about what a 40 minute 10K minute means, in physiological terms. Here are a couple of useful points to ponder.

1) A 40 min. 10K--well, a 39:59--corresponds with a VDOT (velocity at V02max) value of 52. (My current VDOT, based on several recent races, is between 49 and 50. Call it 49.5)

2) A VDOT of 52 should enable you to run the following other race times:

mile: 5:38
5K: 19:17
half M: 1:28:31
Marathon: 3:04:36

3) A VDOT of 52 gives you an "easy aerobic" pace of 7:59, a marathon pace of 7:02, and a threshold pace of 6:38.

I find all these figures useful in framing my goal--and on telling me just how far I currently am from that goal. Because I KNOW my marathon pace ain't 7:02. That's pushing hard at my current threshold pace, in fact.

Just for the heck of it, I went back through Daniels to see where my old (20-something) times would place me in VDOT terms. My marathon PR (2:53:30) gave me a VDOT of 56. My 5K PR (17:33) and half marathon PR (1:20:30) gave me a VDOT of 58. My mile (5:02) and 10K (35:49) gave me a VDOT of 59. Since I know that my marathon was badly paced--I was in shape to break 2:50--I'd say my "old" competitive VDOT was 58.5.

My point being, my body has a deep memory of being able to sustain a fast pace for considerably longer. And of course I have a memory of being able to do that. In my quest to break the 40 minute 10K barrier, in my quest to improve my VDOT by 2 to 2.5 units, I'm counting on that somatic memory to kick in at unlikely moments--breakthrough moments. I refuse to give in to age just yet. Now when I've broken 40 and 39 and I'm pushing towards 38--well, I may be singing a different tune. But there's more to come and I plan to find it.....



http://This message has been edited by KudzuRunner (edited Oct-21-2004).