Long runs - fast?

[Roy Scott]

But people don't think. Look at Roy Scott's post(109). He's trying to tell a 68 years old who mashes her legs for an hour in the gym, and can barely run 5mph, that all she has to do is crank up the intensity and volume and she will get better.

It's nannying gone mad. It's an I'll scrub your back, if you scrub mine, trade off between people who hate the truth.

What is wrong with a 68 year old mashing their legs if they dont get injured Chris?

Maybe the nanny state that has been telling you for years that we have to wrap ourselves in cotton wool once we hit 50, has got to you. It's not as if I am advocating plyometrics is it.

CL - As with most of your posts, I agree with you. The advice given to Alexandra; increase intensity and volume for a 68 year old lady wont make much difference to her running ability and may actually cause injury.
But ... There are ways of telling people.

If done carefully with sensible injury avoidance strategies it will. Now, as of yet Alexandra has not asked me for advice here, so you are jumping to the wrong conclusions about my advice.

Now get out of Mr Benn's pen and give a constructive post.

[stumpy]

Mandovark,
Whether what you believe is supported by what you have said is not relevent.

Here is how it works.
CL is an educated and knowledgeable man of science. Being a man of science he deals in evidence and facts.
He does not deal in beliefs.
Belief is used by unscientific people, people who will accept something as true without the need for any evidence. For example religion relies on unscientific belief. It appears that CL holds "believers" such as relgious types in contempt; witness the how he derides the post on Lydiard as " the apostle according to Lydiard".

So, by attributing a belief to you he seeks to portray you as unscientific and thereby to undermine any point you make.
You are further undermined when CL assigns to you a belief that is clearly non-sensical such as aerobic capacity being unlimited. "You are a believer, and believers believe any thing, even rubbish like this"

Add to this a some of condescension:
"You had a good think about your answer there; you didn't jump straight in." (well done little person, you're almost managing to be as wise and thoughtful as me)

with a chunk of ego:
"what a shame" (all those people, they tried so hard, but so misguided. If only they had had me there to put them right).

And the point should be clear.
"Crawl back under your rock and stop embarassing yourself."
as, for the avoidance of doubt, should I.

What a load of b******s!

[MP1]

If done carefully with sensible injury avoidance strategies it will. Now, as of yet Alexandra has not asked me for advice here, so you are jumping to the wrong conclusions about my advice.

Now get out of Mr Benn's pen and give a constructive post.[/QUOTE]

Dearest Roy,

You seem a tad aggrieved. You seem to be of the opinion that I stated that you gave Alexandra direct advice. I didn’t, I, in fact quoted CL.
However, if anyone was to suggest that a 68 year old lady was to indeed increase both training intensity and volume, there would be a chance that injury of some sort would occur. That is what I stated. If it is indeed the case that you are in need of support try this link.

[MP1]

Great advert!
These were always my favourite though.
Link

[Roy Scott]

It's not about getting injured Roy. Older people do not have the ability to recover like young people. Its such an obvious fact that even a 'tree hanging Sloth' would understand it.

So they take longer to recover, granted. However if the frequency of workouts goes down does this mean that they shouldnt work hard when they can? Or maybe older adults should totally avoid training so that recovery is not an issue al la big nanny state and blinkered thinking.

Remember even when a Sloth gets older, it still needs the strength to climb a tree.

[ZootHornRollo]

Just back from a long training run and I was thinking about this thread.

My conclusion was: it would be bloody daft to think that running it slower would do me more good. I didn't shred myself, it wasn't race pace, but I felt like I was making an effort all the way, pushing it to maybe 90% of race pace.

It's the longest run I do in training (24m), so if any was going to be my 'long slow run', this would be it. But why should I jog it when I can run it properly and improve my aerobic and muscular endurance - and future times over that distance?

[TheReverand]

ZHR - If this is your longest run it should be done a lot slower than 90% capacity.You do not have to train at break neck pace to improve your aerobic and muscular endurance.
Taking your logic to its extreme conclusion, you are really just suggesting that if you go out and run a long way at near to your race pace, each time you do this you will be able to do it quicker and better than the previous time, this is simply not true, other wise we would just keep improving and improving and all be running 215 marathons.........Slow your training down man and take them long runs easy and enjoy

[Rob Furness]

The point of running the long run slowly (and I use the word slowly in an entirely relative sense) is that you can get the miles in your legs without as high risk of injury. As Reverand says, you can build muscular endurance and aerobic capacity without going hell for leather each time. It's also good for enjoying your run and being able to ignore (to a certain extent) the pace you're doing.

[Mike T]

Long run too fast = knackered for a long time = short "fast" runs too slow = no overall improvement, despite considerable time/effort.

[MP1]

There are obviously lots of discrepancies in peoples thoughts on the old LSR technique. Is it slow or steady? Run faster to get faster, run slow and put the miles in to run faster?
With ZHR running 24 miles at 90% of race pace and The Reverend previously suggesting 50 - 60% of Max HR for a LSR, my question is ...
What HR training zone, or what % of Max HR do people tend to run their LSRs at?