If I offered you the chance to take two mins off your 5K time in a couple of months – I’m sure you’d jump at the chance. Of course this depends on how fast your current 5K time is, but it’s exactly what I did when I went from a 5K parkrun time of 25:03 on 1st February to 23:11 on 15th March. Speaking accurately that’s not quite two mins improvement but it’s also much less than two months! And I did it through almost pure aerobic training.
That improvement is going from a pace of 8:03/mile to 7:24/mile – which is about 39secs – an average of 6-7secs/mile per week. Think about that if you did this training for three months you might expect to be running a mile per minute quicker than you were. What’s the catch? Why doesn’t everybody do this?
Anyone who’s read about aerobic training and especially a system like MAF training will know the literature says improvement will be slow. They interpret this to mean it will take months. They interpret it to mean that when 2-3months later they’re still doing the same pace for the same heart-rate, they just need to be a little more patient. That’s a wrong interpretation – if they’re months down the line with no change, then it’s clear indication their training is ineffective.
Here’s what aerobic training takes time really means …
Aerobic training log
On Saturday Feb 1st I ran 8:03/mile. On Sunday I did a 3-mile run at 8:05 pace. On Monday I did a 2-mile run at 7:45/mile. On Tuesday I did a 3-mile run at 8:11 pace. On Wednesday I did a 3-mile run at 7:58/mile. On Thursday it was another 2-mile run at 7:38 pace. On Friday it was a 3-mile run at 8min/mile.
On Saturday I returned to parkrun and ran 24:46. On Sunday I ran three miles at 8:37/mile. On Monday it was a three mile run again at 8:36/mile. On Tuesday it was two miles at 8:24/mile. On Wednesday, three miles at 8:26/mile. On Thursday three miles at 8:17/mile. On Friday it was the two mile run at 8:05/mile.
On Saturday I didn’t go to parkrun but ran from home for three miles at 8:31/mile and then did the same three mile run on the Sunday at 8:08/mile. On Monday it was the two mile run at 7:42/mile. On Tuesday it was three miles at 8:25/mile. On Wednesday the three miles came in at 8:01/mile. On Thursday it was the two mile run at 7:46/mile and on Friday a three mile run which was paced at 8:28/mile.
Are you bored yet? Keep on reading there’s still another three weeks of running data to go through.
On Saturday I returned to parkrun and ran 24:21 which is 40+ seconds than three weeks ago. Improvement is already showing up. Sunday I went out and ran three miles at 8:20/mile pace. On Monday I ran two miles at 7:31/mile. Tuesday was three miles at 8:08/mile. Wednesday’s run was the same three mile run, this time at 7:53/mile. Thursday I was back on the two mile run at 7:31/mile. And on Friday I did three miles at 8:23/mile.
On Saturday I was back at parkrun running 23:52. Another surprise thirty second improvement over the previous week. Sunday’s run was three miles at 8:00/mile. On Monday it was the two mile run at 7:26/mile followed by three miles at 8:15/mile on Tuesday. Wednesday was three miles at 7:53/mile and then on Thursday it was the two mile run at 7:36/mile. Friday was clearly a tired leg day as the three miles were run at 8:58/mile.
The tiredness meant I gave parkrun a miss on the Saturday allied to it being a wet and windy morning. Nonetheless I still did three miles from home at 8:37/mile pace. On Sunday it was another three miles at 8:22/mile. Monday was the two mile run at 7:43/mile. Tuesday, three miles at 8:35/mile with Wednesday’s three miles coming in at 7:56/mile. Thursday I did another two mile run at 7:41/mile and Friday was 7:58 pace on a three mile run.
On Saturday March 15th I went to parkrun. My legs felt great and I ran 23:11. Almost two minutes quicker than six weeks before.
If you didn’t bother to read all that in detail, I don’t blame you. I could have produced it in a graph or table to give quick visual understanding but I deliberately wrote it longwindedly to make a point. To read it properly requires great patience. And that’s what runners need if they’re going to get aerobic training to work for them.
The training consists of the same thing day-in, day-out with slight variation in pace. Some days are faster; some days are slower. There is no clear pattern of progression other than at the parkruns. Not every runner has the luxury of a local parkrun to measure their progress.
On top of the basic detail I give you, bear in mind this is just the running. Think about what you do with the other twenty-three hours of your day. Getting up. Breakfasting. Work. Lunch. More work. Evening meal. Watching Youtube or television. Sleeping. My week includes going to the gym on Mondays and Thursdays. That’s why Tuesday and Fridays are always notably slower. If you’ve been promised aerobic training will make you faster then you’re eager to see results and those other activities are taking up time before you can go for your next run.
Living through days after day of just doing simple aerobic runs where the pace might be a little faster or slower than the day before can be tough as it doesn’t bring clear results. It’s not like starting a weekly speed session where you will see quick gains. For example last summer when I was running a 440m lap of my road I went from 6:01/mile to 5:01/mile in three weeks.
There’s a temptation for runners – “I now feel better off the bit of aerobic training I’ve done and just jogging around every day surely won’t help forever; perhaps it’s time to drop in some speedwork as I know it’s worked for me in the past”.
They say “a watched pot never boils” but that’s what runners doing aerobic training often do. They keep checking, comparing their times and paces looking for that improvement. If they use a heart-rate monitor they’ll be including that data.
All this is a great example of where you have trust the process. Set the target of doing a block of aerobic work then just get out and do the runs and don’t worry about the results. In a few weeks’ time you’ll see they’re getting faster.
When coaches mean say “aerobic training takes time” I’ve tried to show you what they mean. You should begin to see some kind of improvement in three weeks whether that’s a faster pace, a lower heart-rate or just feeling better on the runs. It might take six weeks to begin to see notable change but if, by 8-10 weeks everything is still in the same place then your training isn’t effective. It’s time to change direction.
Big Red Running 