re: Official Running Log/Marathon Training Thread

Speedwork helps, there's no doubt. But I don't know if I'd say "drastically". I personally am just slow. Even at peak Ironman fitness, 8:00 miles for a 5k was me running hard. I'll admit I never did "sprints" and my focus was on longer distances, but did a lot of 1/4 mile repeats along with 5, 8, 10, 12 minute intervals at high tempo pace. No doubt it helped my overall times. I easily broke 2 hours for a half marathon beating my previous best by like 15 minutes. But it was still like a 8:58 pace. Some of that performance can definitely be attributed to speedwork, but a lot was just a huge increase in fitness. Speedwork won't turn a 10:00 easy pace person into a 7:30 easy pace person overnight. It takes years of base miles.

Genetically speaking, some people can do it out of the gate and some can't. I have pretty decent endurance ability. I can keep adding miles. I have a tough time getting faster though. My average HR is in 160's on an easy run and up around 190-200 on a hard run. Wheras you have good runners redlining at 150.