Today was beautiful out and I had a nice tempo run. The run was 20 minutes at 6:30 pace, and I felt machine-like doing it, which is good. In fact, I don't feel like I was working all that hard. But two tempos/week are helping with my threshold, as well as keeping injuries at bay. Asked about my training routine here's what I said:


When you work-out, there should always be an objective:VO2 speed, general aerobic, lactate threshold, endurance, and recovery. As long as you're working on something, you'll get faster. Most mileage should be general nothing-special runs. But, it's good to have some speed, long runs, etc. I do 1 long run, 2 lactate threshold (tempo) runs, and 3 general aerobic runs per week plus 1 recovery run. So the speed ranges for me are from 6:20/mile to 9:30/mile, averaging in the middle. I don't do VO2max (fast 400s, 800s) since I've had better results from two 20-minute tempos. The key is that you're never well rested if you train well, except when you take a couple easy days before a big race. So chin-up if you have an off-day training. Conversely, great training runs don't guarantee race success either. The key is enough running at different paces. Try not to compete with yourself when training. It leads to injury and mental fatigue.