044: Training Paces in Your Running Plan Explained

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEVIN!

The internet in filled with training plans designed for all sorts of race distances with the allure of magic paces and workouts to help you reach your peak.  In this episode we break down where these plans come from, what some of the vocabulary means, and hopefully educate you about how different paces can help you.  

First, the plans come from well intentioned exercise physiologists trying to take research on elite athletes and adjust it to mortals.  The issue is when reducing the paces or distances, the benefits might not be the same. Also, given the background of an elite runner versus a more typical runner, even identical workouts will result in different physical adaptations.  

The paces in these plans often fall into one of these categories.

Marathon pace- This is what you can sustain for 2:30 to 3:00 regardless of how far that gets you.  If you finish a marathon around 4:22(10 minute miles) your "marathon pace" in training is still not 10:00, it’s probably closer to 9:30

Half marathon pace- This is the pace you can hold for 1:00-1:30.  This pace can be very useful for long steady state runs for marathon training regardless of finishing time

Threshold pace - aka lactate threshold, or LT pace- This is a pace you could run for a one hour race.  This pace is the speed when your body is just balanced between producing fatigue causing byproducts and eliminating the byproducts.  

• There are two major workouts around this speed. Steady state runs at threshold pace encourage the raising of this threshold level.
• Combo workouts, where you shift between paces about and below this level (5k and marathon pace for example) help the body figure out how to deal with the fatigue and painful byproducts while still running at a decent pace.  These workouts are brutal and require plenty of recovery.

Tempo runs are a specific workout involving 20 minutes at threshold pace.  Over the years they have become incorrectly synonymous with any steady state run.  Since Jack Daniels brought them to popularity, I feel that his alternate workout of intervals slightly faster than

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