Black and White

I thought this post from Ian Dobson was worthy posting a link to - http://blog.ianandjulia.com/?p=623. It has to do with easy runs and what pace you should do them at, and I think he’s spot on. Howard has always told me that the only thing you should be trying to accomplish on a recovery day is to get prepared for the next hard day, so you run whatever distance and pace best allows for that. So why not take the days between workouts off altogether? Well, there are times when that might be appropriate, but in order to build and maintain basic aerobic fitness, you need to stack on some mileage and therefore can only get away with so many days off if you want to maximize your performance. Plus, I’ve always found that as long as I keep the effort and distance under control an easy run leaves me better prepared for the next day than a day completely off. I tend to think that’s because getting the heart rate up and increasing blood flow helps flush my legs out and keep them loose, as well as maintain a routine.

As Dobson mentions in his blog, I think the GPS can be a dangerous tool, and I’ve probably gotten a little too tied to it myself, something I’m going to get away from, especially on my easy days. Like he said, when it comes to recovery days, there’s really no difference at all between doing them at 7:00 pace or 7:15 pace or even 7:30 pace. The 7:00 pace isn’t fast enough to accomplish anything in terms of lactate threshold, VO2 max, etc., so all it does is take a little extra effort and leave you not quite as fresh for the next workout when you really need to be able to hammer.

Anyway, Dobson’s post isn’t anything new to me, but it was a timely reminder as I start to train hard again. Plus, it’s always reassuring to see that an Olympian and low-13 minute 5k guy sometimes does easy runs as slow as 8:30 pace. So, going forward, I want to remember to keep my hard days hard and my easy days easy. As Howard has told me before, you can’t mix the two or it’s like washing all your black shirts with your white ones over and over. Before long, all you have is a mess of gray.