If you want to run as fast as possible on a race day, you need to run as fast as possible in training, right? Dead wrong!!

Have you ever heard of ‘Train hard and win easily’’ or ‘’Work hard to be the best’’ or something like that?

I will never be against those ideas. And I want to be a hard-working person too. However, there is a big difference between training hard and always trying to run as fast as possible.

For most people, it seems to make sense to run as fast as possible in training because on a race day, you try to run as fast as possible. Why do you need to change what to do?

In fact, when I was an elementary student, I always tried to run as fast as possible in training before an Ekiden race. Not only me, but everyone also tried to run as fast as possible and teachers pushed students.

By the way, at the Ekiden race, one team consists of 5 runners, and each runner ran 1.2km. Don’t worry, I was not the best runner. Although I was not so slow because I played baseball at that time, in other words, I ran more than non-sports students. However, I was just like top 5 out of 50 boys. Nothing special.

I didn’t know how to train at that time. I just repeated the same thing which I was supposed to do on a race day. Of course, I got a bit faster but not so much. At that time, I was just one of them.

And then, I went to a local public junior high school and met one of the best junior high school coaches in Kyoto prefecture. In case you are wondering what prefecture is, prefecture is something like state. Japan consists of 47 prefectures. Take Tokyo, Osaka, and Hokkaido as examples.

We hardly ran as fast as possible in training, in other words, I always had some reserves. Races were almost only chances that we ran with the maximal effort. If there is no race for a while, we did a time trial or sometimes we did a short time trial just for fun. Something like 1000-2000m.

Most of our training was combination of easy runs, moderate runs, easy to moderate runs, supplemental speed workouts like 5x150m or 5x200m and short interval 15-20x200m.

Since we did not run as fast as possible in training, it was easy to increase the training volume. And I got faster dramatically in 3 years.

When I became a junior high school student, I ran 1500m 5:57, in other words, I was able to run 3000m approximately 12:30. And before I graduated the junior high school, I ran 3000m 8:51. I was the second-best runner in Kyoto prefecture.

The 5 years later, I became my coach, so-called self-coach. I started creating a training plan for myself. So, I gathered as much information as possible about successful coaches and runners in the last 60 years from 1500m to full marathon. Everyone trained differently, however there were many common things.

Based on my analysis, 95% of all training is slower than race pace. No matter which distance they trained for, what nationality they had, which era they were born, which skin color they had. Of course, there was a difference between athletes, coaches and which period they were in. But no exception, always around 95% of all training is slower than race pace. Even in a radical case, about 15% of total training is race pace or faster than race pace.

The rest is always 10-1% of total training is race pace or faster than race pace.

And does that mean the rest around 5% is the maximal effort?

No.

Because they use interval workouts, in other words, there was rest in-between. Or they use time trial in shorter distance. But it is more like tempo run, not a real time trial. What I mean is, for 10,000m runner, they use 5,000m time trial at 10,000m race pace. For 5,000m runners, they use 3,000m time trial at 5,000m race pace. For marathoners, they use 20km time trial at full marathon race pace and so on.

So, no matter whether it is endurance workouts or speed workouts, top runners do not run as fast as possible.

If I tell you the exception, they often run in the last 1km, the last 400m, the last 200m as fast as possible. It’s because of practicing the end spurt, having funs, challenging or wanting to beat training partners etc. But in any case, it is not so important. I mean it is ignorable amount.

Then here is the question.

Why don’t they run as fast as possible in training?

Before I answer the question, we need to ask ourselves what the purpose of training is?

Of course, getting faster is one of the answers. But how do we get faster by training?

In our bodies tons of chemical actions happen. You always look like the same person. But, chemistrically speaking, you are always changing. You are a 98% different person in a year. In our bodies, always materials are catabolized and synthesized. In other words, tons of materials get broken down and rebuilt.

Usually, the materials in our bodies get broken down and rebuilt in the completely same way. That’s why you still look like you. Two months ago, I met an old friend. We have not met for 10 years. But we still realized each other at the moment. This is because materials inside of our bodies are rebuilt in the completely same way.

However, if our body gets stimulus, materials inside of our bodies are rebuilt in a different way. If this process goes successfully, our body adapts to that stimulus. Stimulus can be heat, can be cold, can be playing baseball, can be endurance training.

No matter what it is, our bodies adapt to stimulus specifically. That’s why it is called the law of specificity. If you play baseball, you become a better baseball player, if you play basketball, you become a better basketball player, if you run, you become a better runner and if you swim, you become a better swimmer.

No matter what it is, your body adapts to stimulus specifically.

However, here is the problem. Remember, adapting to stimulus is a part of catabolizing and synthesizing process, in other words, it is a part of breaking down and rebuilding process. What if breaking down process occurs more than rebuilding process?

Our bodies get weaker, rather than adapting to training stimulus and getting stronger.

For sprinters, it is relatively OK to run as fast as possible. Sprinters in my high school were so strong. Almost all sprinters ran 100m under 11 seconds, in other words, almost all sprinters were 100m 10 seconds sprinters. And they hardly ran more than 80m in training.

In this case, even though they ran as fast as possible, the training load is not so much. I am not saying ‘that is easy’ at all. However, human bodies are still able to tolerate it.

On the other hand, what if we repeat 5,000m at the maximal effort every day? I’m sure we get slower and slower.

Also, for endurance athletes, endurance training is very important. However, the longer we run at the maximal effort, the more materials inside of our bodies get broken down. In other words, there are more risks of breaking down process beats rebuilding process, in other words there are more risks to get slower and/or injured.

So, we should not train as hard as possible in one workout.

We need to combine several types of workouts.

Roughly speaking, there are 4 types of training.

The first one is recovery training. I don’t know if it is the right English. But anyway, yeah recovery training. You recover and train at the same time. That means, low intensity with moderate volume or low intensity with low volume. Also, it could be low volume with moderate intensity. But I do not recommend you the last one because it is more difficult to recover with moderate intensity even if the volume is low.

The second one is moderate intensity with moderate volume.

The third one is low or moderate intensity with high volume.

The last one is low or moderate volume with high intensity.

You combine these 4 types of workouts. Never do high intensity with high volume workout. It should be only a race.

What is low, moderate or high depends on which event do you prepare for and how good shape you are in.

For example. for 5000m 20 minutes runner who run 300km a month regularly, the moderate volume is 10km a day because that is his average training volume per day and all workouts at 4:24 or faster than that pace is high intensity because it is 90% of his race pace or faster than that. But of course, I cannot make a clear line.

How about 85% of his race pace? Is it moderate intensity or high intensity?

I’m not sure. I would say ‘That is high intensity because he would feel hard’, but it is not so hard. 4:36/km pace in other words 85% of his race pace is not so hard for him if the distance is less than 12km, in other words, moderate volume for him.

Anyway, learning these 4 types of workouts properly is one of the most important things for long distance runners including marathoners.

I hope you have a lot of successes.

Lastly, if you want to learn more training tips, please click here to download my E-book ‘The 3 factors you get faster dramatically without any injuries and overtraining’ because it will help you a lot if you want to get faster seriously.

Thank you for reading!!