I'm gonna do a little reading to prepare for next season, and I was thinking there might be a few of you who'd like to join me.  I'm imagining a book a month for three months.  You can do all three or pick and choose.  I'm hoping there might even be a few of you who will stop by for discussions who have already read these books and applied their principles.  Maybe we'll even get a coach or two to stop by and offer some insight once and a while :)

The schedule:

September 15-October 15: Daniel's Running Formula

October 15-November 15: The Triathlete's Guide to Training with Power

November 15-December 15:Swim Speed Secrets

Who's in?

I think it is very relevant especially for a beginner.  He speaks to some of the physiology of running and training with a purpose.  By understanding some of the principles of running and training I think a beginner can avoid many of the mistakes that most less knowledgeable runners make.  By understanding the purposes of various types of training sessions and when and how to schedule them you can minimize injury and get the most out of the time and effort you put into the sport. 

Yep, I agree! And with the bit about Switchy, too.

Time for me to revisit this classic ... like Salty, I'll be in and out as well, as I can or as I have thoughts or thoughts on others' thoughts.

Yeah, what he said 

And with this thread anyone can ask questions about things their confused about.

Ok to carry over in here,

"

True, but is 5k for a mile pushing anaerobic?  Surely not, or you couldn't sustain that pace for a 5k.  When I did the Jack Daniels plan when I was improving my 10k, he had a couple of X 800's workouts, but he had way more mile repeats in his plan.

Maybe we should (as they say at my work) "take this offline" and wait until the Daniels' Running Formula thread gets jumping."

So let me get this straight, JD had you doing mile repeats at 5K pace? How many and how much rest? And was it a v02 workout?

If I look at his vdot charts it's not even listing a a mile for reps  or intervals. It seems it's more geared towards the threshold pace for mile repeats, which makes a lot more sense to me.

Alright!  Let's get this party started!

Here's a workout straight from the 5k-15k plan that JD has in his book:

Mile repeats at I pace with 4 min jogs.
Time at I should be below ~8% weekly mileage

Going by my 5k time of 19:01 when I was focused on my 10K, my VDOT was 52.  As you can see in that chart, he doesn't have an "I" pace listed for that VDOT.  However, my T pace at that Vdot was 6:38.  I extrapolated that my "I" pace was somewhere in the neighborhood of my 5k pace, and a few calculators online seemed to show similar results.  

As for the 8% mileage rule, this ended up being around 3 miles for me when that workout started getting closer.  

He also had workouts similar to this in his plan:

4x1mile T pace with 2min recovery jogs)+ 4x(200m R pace with 200 jogs)

He had efforts that were across the board, and I believe that's because for a distance like the 10k (like the 40k in the bike) you need a combination of strong aerobic capacity and muscular endurance to pull off a good time.

Yeah, I would have expected the second workout 4 x mile @ T with the stride type at the end. We do that one a lot. You get to work at threshold AND get some economy/form/turnover

I guess it just seems really inefficient because you are running less time at VO2 max (as opposed to say, an 8 x 800 workout) and you are taking really long rests. And it seems a little cumbersome with having to extrapolate anything I mean, I hardly use the word extrapolate in regular conversation  and then having to calculate the 8% and then that happening to be an an even mile for mile repeats. 

 But, I can see your point about getting the endurance and aerobic capacity. And I totally spaced on the context you hinted at by saying it depends on what you are training for.  So, good call. 

Heh.  As a Software Engineer I use the word "extrapolate" daily.

I agree that all the calculation that JD requires in some of his planning can be cumbersome, but for me that's part of the fun.  Also I'm not talented enough to get faster by just running, so knowing exactly why I'm doing x workout and how it's helping is a must for me.

Edit:

Thinking about it, when I compare the 10k run to the 40k bike, the 3-4 mile x 5k effort isn't that much different than a 4 x 10' @ 100% or 2x20' effort workout on the bike 

Hmmmm interesting thought about talent.

I don't consider myself all that talented. But I feel like I've got the gift of being inexperienced enough that a lot of "just running" will get me a long way.

The really talented people seem to have to really push hard in really specific ways to continue to improve.

Or at least that is my observation.

There are some calculators out there that will give you the mile pace:

http://www.attackpoint.org/trainingpaces.jsp?eqdist=1500&vdot=52

Yeah, what he said 

I've read that as well, but for 1 mile effort, if I can handle running a 5k at my 5k pace, then how is it unsafe for me to do a 3x1 mile with 4 minute jog workout at said pace?