I've been doing more poking around the internet a stumbled upon some training threads on Letsrun.com. Most of the posts on the website are a bunch of crap but there are some buried in there with a wealth of training info from people who really know what they are talking about. I pulled up a great thread on aerobic training which led to a link then to another link and then a huge description on how to base-train using heart rate to set your pace. I saved the link on my work computer but not here and now I can't find it again.

Anyhow maybe I can relate the main points... or maybe not. Looking back over my training I really haven't just done straight aerobic training since the winter of 2006. During this time the Thursday night crew was in full swing and we were taking 8-10 mile loops through the park at easy paces in the frigid weather. I remember that I didn't go under 7:30 pace for weeks on end. It wasn't really a planned thing just whatever everybody was doing at the time so I stuck to it. It worked, I had a great summer of training, a kick ass marathon in the fall and even a decent marathon the following winter.

I should have gone back to that last winter, easy, easy miles, just pile them up. So how do these easy miles make you run faster? Don't I need tempo runs, speed workouts and hills to maximize my speed? It might be true to squeeze that last little bit out of your legs but to build your speed upon it just doesn't work. The marathon is over 99% aerobic and I think even the 5K is 95% aerobic.

The article used a tube of toothpaste to demonstrate the point. I've been squeezing from the middle of the tube and now trying to get the last little bit out by working hard on the top. The problem is I still have all of the stuff at the bottom but I am not going to reach it with hard workouts.

To do that I have to go slow again, real slow to start. Like 8:30 to 9:00 pace initially. Get well below my lactic threshold and work on a purely aerobic basis. Doing this I can generate more paths for oxygen to get to my leg muscles and use that oxygen more efficiently once it gets into my cells. This will serve to increase my pace while I still keep the same heart rate. it will also increase the pace that I can run before reaching my lactate threshold. Those tempo runs taught my body how to deal with the lactate but the lactate was getting generated at speeds that were to slow so I was overwhelming things. If I train my aerobic system properly I should be able to move that lactate threshold pace further out so when I am running my goal pace in the marathon I won't be generating as much lactate to begin with, I can sustain that pace longer, burn more fat and not crash at mile 20 like I have been.

This might be a little to science based compared to my normal approach of just going out and running and things will happen but I really do think it makes sense. To make this work I need a heart rate monitor and a solid 15-20 weeks of running slow based on heart rate and evaluation runs every 6 weeks. I am not sure if I want to take that step over the summer but I am thinking about it. I'll be my on guinea pig. I'll post the link at work tomorrow if anyone is interested in reading it. It's long.

Tonight 60 minutes about 6.5miles.