Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

Paul, what pace do you try to stay at in your recovery work-outs, and is it hard for you to stay at that pace?

Kory - I usually run by feel, and do whatever feels easy for my body on that day. On a "good" day, it is as fast as 6:30/mile. On a "bad" day, it is more like 7:30/mile to 8:00/mile. On average, it's around 7:00/mile. I try to make my workouts hard enough that I really need the recovery, so no, it's not hard to stay at a slower pace on easy days! Not an issue. I have no bottom end; I will run as slow as I need to in order to recover. If it's 8-minute miles, then so be it.

Kory--he's not serious about not having a bottom end. We tried to run together to the gym a few weeks ago and he just started walking at my running pace. He was itching to go faster. He can't help it, speed is in his blood.

Kory, I learned that I should usually only run with Paul on his easy to medium days, and it is fast enough for me. On tempo days, he smokes me. Sometimes his easy days seem easy to me, but often they are a good workout.

Jon, I can understand that. Paul is an exceptional runner and a wonderful guy, full of knowledge and has many wins in the future.

Lately I haven't had that fast step it seems since STG, and the Silicon Valley Marathon's. Right now I'm not sure what type of speed work to do to get back in the hard workouts. I thought about doing 5 mile tempos and 800's each week but I'm just not sure. Paul do you have any advice?

Kory - I think you are due for a "reboot". Time to start a new training cycle and build a base. This will also help you mentally. You've done a lot of marathons in the last few months, and should do some easier aerobic mileage for a few months.

Try this: forget about intervals and hard tempos, and focus on building a very solid base for the spring and summer racing season. Keep most of your runs a nice, easy pace (based on how your body feels). Once a week, do a "slow tempo" within a run, of up to 6-8 miles. Pace should be about a minute slower than your 5K pace, probably no faster than 6:20/mile

oops...accidently hit "submit".

Anyway, tempo once/week at 6:20-6:30 pace or so. This should actually feel pretty relaxing, but does wonders for building aerobic endurance. If you are feeling good, you can do a second workout during the week, a fartlek. Something like 3-4 minutes hard, 2-3 minutes easy, no more than 5 intervals. Run these a little bit faster than half marathon pace, a little slower than 10K pace. You should NOT go anaerobic at any point. Run by feel, don't force anything. If you don't feel up for a fartlek, just do a second tempo run. All other runs should be pretty easy, 7:00/mile or slower. Incorporate 6-8x100m strides 2 or 3 times/week, preferably after the workouts. Just relax and enjoy the runs, and get in some good mileage. Run twice/day if you have the time, if not, don't sweat it. Start with about 65 miles/week and slowly build up to 80-85 by early spring. Increase mileage by no more than 10% every 2-3 weeks. Find a race every 3 weeks or so to keep yourself interested, but don't worry about tapering for any of them, and don't worry about actual performance. By March, you should have a great aerobic base, and be ready to do some serious marathon training.

During this base phase, you can also do some core work and light weights to build additional strength, stability, and injury-prevention.

Great advice, I have been thinking about my winter training program and may incoporate these ideas as well.

Kory, I recommend you read some training theory by John Kellogg. You can find him under the training advice section of Lets Run.com. It basically says what Paul just told you but with an explanation also of why you should cycle your training. It will open your eyes I'm telling you, Read it!

Arthur Lydiard would also be good to study with some modifications of course.