Quote Originally Posted by IainR View Post
1. I like reading people's training diaries just to see the huge variability in training. One of the top 100k runners does a lot of his training at 8:30-9:00 min mileing, yet in a 100k, he'll run the whole 62 miles close to 7 min mileing. I think mentally I'd get fatigued being out for that long, going that slow, unless I was on nice trails or with people. He also does a fair amount of weights and then track sessions, so very much easy or hard in his running. He's a 2:30 something marathoner so anything close to 9 min mileing is a good 50% slower than his marathon pace..

2. I find it interesting the top runners who train largely on their bikes, but when you talk to them most of them have a history of running decent mileage before replacing a lot of running with bike work.
And to quote Roy Scott too - "Work within the range of 85-100% Max HR is essential, and you have to be able to perform in these sessions. Not half baked because you are trying to get to 100 miles for the week. Some elite Marathon runners can run a whole marathon at 85-90% of their max heart rate, so ambling along at 70% is a waste of time.

Now the aerobic base you talk of is mainly a result of two physiological adaptations. 1 - An increase in mitochondria density 2 - Increase efficiency of fat metabolism. These two can both be achieved at 50-60% of max heart rate, i.e. an easy run."

So it's a hard or easy approach in the training, the medium sessions just make you tired, this makes sense to me and something i suffered from, running a hardish medium session on a Tuesday, and not recovered to make best use of the track session on a Thursday. Now do try to be rested for Thursday's and prepare the head for a hard session.

Learning to enjoy the easy running sessions helps, i find no pressure to run at a particular pace makes it enjoyable and coming having done a run with ease is great too.

For those who like a blast at a hard medium pace, just go out and enjoy.