Quote Originally Posted by Roy Scott View Post
When you collate the most effective global endurance programmes, i.e. those with used by the elite of endurance, there is only one single theme running through them. That theme is that when they work hard they really, really work hard, close to their maximum heart rate. Everything around that is done at an almost pedestrian pace. There is no, or very little moderate (or no man's land as I like to call it) training.

So if you are an athlete looking to improve, you may as well drop your moderate runs and save your chemical reserves for the tough stuff that makes a difference. Unless of course you can not muster the bottle to work that hard.
Oft said is we run our slow runs too fast and our fast runs too slow, which fits with the above.

An anecdote i take with me is that an athlete coming back from a first time elite training camp was really struck how slow they ran most of the time, but really put it out there on the quality sessions.