Longer easy runs at “very” easy pace...

Létrehozta: aaronpawlak  |  2018-03-31 08:14:02-kor

Hello,

I have a friend who is training for the Boston Marathon. He has run one previous marathon in 2:55 to qualify for Boston. We were discussing his training last week and he told me that his coach wants him to run very easy for all his non-workout days but to be getting in 9-10 miles on those easy days. I plugged in his previous marathon time to the Tinman calculator and it spit out 8:48 for “very easy” pace. That’s about what he’s running on these filler mileage days - 10 miles at a crack. Maybe the first mile or two, sure that’s fine but for a whole 10 mile outing? That’s a minimum of a ~90 min run every day. To me that almost seems mind-numbingly slow. I know that his workouts right now are not anything too demanding yet so it’s not like he needs a ton of recovery. But what do I know - he's got my marathon PR beat by about 8 minutes (although I'm faster than him at anything HM and shorter).

I’m not saying his coach is wrong but I wonder how this compares to doing a bit less mileage but speeding it up to “easy” pace (or around 5k pace plus 2 min). Is the very easy higher mileage filler days good for a marathoner? More time on feet in preparation for the marathon? Just philosophical questions as I have no intention/desire to run a marathon any time soon. It just got me thinking about Tinman’s comments regarding long tempos vs. short tempos and how the benefit is similar but you have to deal with more wear and tear with the long tempo. Does the same idea apply for easy run days? What benefit can be gained from a super slow 10 miler compared to a regular easy pace 7-8 miler?

Please help

I didn't find the right solution from the internet.

References:
http://www.therunzone.com/viewtopic.php?t=3288
Product demo video company

Thanks