The need for Speed!

Down at the track last night I joined the 800 and 1500 runners group who were running 10 x 300 metre repetitions at their 1500 meters pace. I dawned on me during the session the importance of speed in Marathon running.

While training for the Paris Marathon I had got to a stage where my 5km time was run at almost the same speed as that which I could achieve over a half marathon. This was a great indication of how much endurance I had built up but that while running at 3:30 per km was reasonably comfortable running at anything faster then 3:20 per km spelt disaster.

What I realised during the running of the 300's last night was that I was running at my 400 meter race pace and even if I had wanted to run quicker I just did not have the speed in my legs to achive this. This brings me back to a comment made by Emil Zatopek on his training methods, "Why should I practice running slow? I already know how to run slow. I want to learn to run fast." Although churning out 100 x 400 meter reps for a week might not be advisable I am certainly coming around to the importance of speed in my training.