Faster after a race

[Anonymous]

I've noticed after my last few races I've picked up speed in my easy runs by a decent margin. Today I did 12MM in zone 1 HR whereas a month ago I was doing 12:30 in zone 2HR. Is this common? Will it level out or stick? I did Pikes Peak last Sunday about 11 days ago and I've done 6 runs since then, all faster than pre-race. I did train for PP but I've been running for 5 years.

[Anonymous]

That’s great! How much further that improves depends on a many factors (eg age, gender, nutrition, how much sleep you are getting) but a big part is your average weekly mileage. This is by no means precise but to give you an idea you might continue to see bigger improvements like then a plateau. You’ve added a weekly strength training session, a speed/hill session and are consistently cranking out an average weekly mileage of 35-45. You continue to improve then bam. You feel like you hit a performance improvement wall. One way to move beyond this is to push even greater weekly mileage hitting 60 a week. You might then plateau again but continue to push until you sustain 80+ miles a a week and see your easy pace drop to is 8:30 in zone 1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That’s great! How much further that improves depends on a many factors (eg age, gender, nutrition, how much sleep you are getting) but a big part is your average weekly mileage. This is by no means precise but to give you an idea you might continue to see bigger improvements like then a plateau. You’ve added a weekly strength training session, a speed/hill session and are consistently cranking out an average weekly mileage of 35-45. You continue to improve then bam. You feel like you hit a performance improvement wall. One way to move beyond this is to push even greater weekly mileage hitting 60 a week. You might then plateau again but continue to push until you sustain 80+ miles a a week and see your easy pace drop to is 8:30 in zone 1.

Thank you! Now that I am doing 4 miles in 45 minutes rather than 3.5 miles, I can spend the same amount of time and get more miles in every week. I am still in shock at this new pace, I've been dreaming of it for a long time....

[Anonymous]

So cool. It’s really to stick with it because progress can seem slow but stick with it and maybe put a 5k race on the calendar a few months out. It will be something to work towards and can help with accountability when you aren’t as motivated to head out the door.