To change or modify?

[Dan]

Hey everyone. My first post here and I had a question or two. First let me say I am happy I stumbled upon the website, blogs and forum! There is a ton of information and I have read a lot. That being said I may have missed an answer to my questions.

A little about me, I am turning 40 very soon and I stared running in Feb 2009 for the first time in my life. Don't get me wrong I was always athletic and played many sports through school, but never ran. My wife and I decided to attempt to get into better shape last year and I quickly moved from the Wii Fit (yes really!) to running out doors. I made many goals and ran a marathon in September of last year and was thrilled to accomplish that. 

My biggest problem was post marathon and reading WAY to many conflicting articles on running from people who didn't know what they were talking about it. Of course I didn't realize it at that time. So I found myself this early spring trying regain the endurance and little speed I had late last year.

After reading here I see that adding base miles and hitting that 10 mile a day for 6 days seems pretty key in helping all areas of running. This is what I am doing:

M 6 Miles (sort of tempo)
T 4 Miles 'Recovery'
W 6 Miles with 800 intervals
T 4 Miles 'Recovery'
F 6 Miles at 10k pace (8-7:45 min miles)
S 10-14 Miles - Long Run
S rest

So what I planned on doing is increasing the base so next week adding a mile a day each week or every other until I hit the 10/day. Should I abandon the speed work or can I keep doing it as I increase that base?
I really want to improve my 5K time (7:20/min roughly) and yet still prepare another marathon.

Thanks for any input!! 

[Jon Allen]

Dan

Welcome to the blog.  As a quick response to your question, I think you will see FAR, FAR more improvement from just increasing your base mileage versus doing the speedwork.  Not to say you can't do some speedwork (especially an occasional tempo), but 3 speed workouts a week will likely increase injury risk and decrease your overall ability to run high base mileage.  In particular, your weekly Fri workout is essentially a 10k race (6 miles at 10k pace)- there is no need to have a "race" every week, especially if you also do 800 intervals on Wed and a tempo on Mon.  If you CAN do those workouts, then it means that your true 10k race pace is faster than you think- I don't know anyone who can do a 10k race plus 2 other speed workouts every week, especially at less than 40 miles per week.

Short summary- more base, less speedwork.  I wouldn't suggest more than 25% of your mileage as speedwork, max.  And at the mileage you are at, no speedwork would be fine, too.  Maybe an occasional tempo or race, but not too much.

Hope this helps.  Feel free to ask more questions on the forum in the future, too- forum questions are much more likely to be seen than questions on your personal blog.

[steve ashbaker]

Dan, Very few runners need more than 1 speed session a week unless they are middle distance specialists.  I would say either race once a week this season or keep it to one session of long intervals per week at this stage.  Another thing, to keep your recovery rate optimal I would only add mileage on three days per week excluding the speed workout.  Makes for a lower monotony schedule:)

[Dan]

Thanks for the feedback guys! The more posts I read the more I am understanding- I have read other sites that push more speed work but now I think I see the flaws. I already am increasing my base and will keep some speed work- so when I get my base where it needs to be I will be asking more on this topic I am sure.

[dave rockness]

Dan, just an encouragement.  I'm similiar to your situation.  Just started running 2 1/2 years ago (yet alway fitness oriented).  Turned 40 last week.  Improved my marathon by 1 hour in my first year on this blog.  One of my weaknesses is overdoing tempo/speed stuff.  Stick with the blog's philosphy, eat healthy, and you'll continue to see improvement.  Welcome and good luck!

[Jeff Linger]

After my first marathon, which I overtrained for, I backed off on the speedwork and spent about 3 months doing nothing but base work before entering my formal marathon training. During that period of time I did a threshhold run about once every 10 days and a marathon paced long run (I threw in increasing increments of marathon pace up to a 16 miles of marathon pace on my last one) every 3rd long run or so. I did my best to keep my weekly mileage near 60 mpw. Outside of my threshold runs and marathon paced runs I threw in a progressive run about once every 10 days as well. These were usually only about 6-8 mile runs where I dropped my pace by 15 seconds/mile for about 4 miles ending with my last mile about 30 seconds faster than marathon pace. I was able to drop almost 6 minutes off a 3:11 first marathon at Boston.

[Dan]

Dave- Thanks for the encouragement! I needed that.

Jeff- I don't quite know what you mean by the end? You dropped 6 minutes off a 3:11 so you finished at 3:05? Or what did you mean?

I get the rest and I am now working on my base miles as that seems to be a proven winner here 

[Jeff Linger]

I was able to improve from a 3:11 to a 3:06 and did the 3:06 at Boston which is a terrible place to attempt a PR. I mean to add to the end of my original post that the rest of my miles were all strictly Aerobic Base miles.