What's wrong with me?

Det....You aren't doing anything actually wrong, just when you are doing it may be the key.

I'll stick this in here, doing 1/4 mile repeats at 6:00min/mile and trying to add to it doesn't work....go to the link further down the page for the reasons why. I tried it and it didn't work for me either all it did was train me to go fast for a short distance and then need rest cos I was aerobically untrained.

Between races I would drop the speedwork and concentrate on form, efficiency and keeping yourself aerobic (barely noticing you are breathing is about right or conversational) and upping the mileage so you get a few long runs in up to about 7-8 miles even if they take 90 minutes. When you are about a month out from your race start reducing the duration of the runs and then start upping the tempo and throw in some intervals and tempo runs.

You are right by not doing enough long steady distance running you have detrained the slowtwitch fibers, The type II/fast twitch fibers are the ones doing most of the work during the intervals and they are nice and sharp and well trained. All of a sudden when you are required to string the intervals together and make it a fast moderate distance run your aerobic slow twitch fibers being undertrained are swamped and produce lactate as they cannot process oxygen efficiently....effectively you are going slower cos the burden is being handled by the faster twitch fibers which don't do so well aerobically and the slow twitch fibers are inefficient as they aren't well trained...let me guess you started the 1.5 mile well and went slower and slower as the pain built up?

for your race coming up I'd say dump any thought of intervals and concentrate on a minimum of 2 long slow runs per week at a minimum of 1 hour duration.....and make them super slow....and do one tempo run where you start and finish at LSD pace but the middle third you up the pace slightly

run your slow runs at a maximum of 10:00min per mile or conversational which ever is slower

make the center of the tempo runs a little slower than the 8:36 pace something like 8:45-8:55.

you should start to see the speed come back pretty quick once you go slow enough to cause the adaptations needed in the slow twitch fibers...

for a full explanation go to this url http://www.ffh.us/cn/hadd.htm

Yes it is long winded, but it is by far the best explanation I have come across for training your aerobic system first and building on it for speed. If you have a HR monitor find what your maximum HR is and use the formulas in the article for a reference in regard to the right effort level....I have a max of 194bpm and my LSD runs are at 145bpm and below... at a pace of 10:45 per mile.....my 5k PR is 23:35 10k 45:XX HM 1:45:XX just to show that LSD runs will not hurt your speed if you have balance to your training.

I thought this would only apply to 10k and above but I shaved over 2 minutes from my 5k PR by getting a decent base under my belt and adding speed work at the right time....which was about 4 weeks out.

regards

Kevin





Edited by PrimeCase 2005-08-11 10:42 PM