8 miles on the river trail with Amber, Megan, Scott, Melissa, and Jen 8:28 pace. Jen and I got into an argument this morning. We are the best of friends, arguing is healthy and fun. We were arguing about recovery/easy runs as Jen was running up ahead, running circles around us, and doubling our mileage....
My argument = I'm a firm believer that recovery is exactly what the word says and there is no such thing as too slow. I think that the harder your hard days are the easier your easy days should be. Clearly I'm not racing well now but in the past I feel like this is what has worked best for me. But maybe this is just my excuse to run slow? hahaha I wouldn't put it past me.
Jen's argument = That method doesn't work and there is no reason to run anything over an 8 min pace ever. Jen likes to do her recovery days at around ~7:15-7:45 pace and feels that running "slow" is detremental to her progress towards OTQ. I think that if she would have taken her taper week and recovery runs slower it would improve her chances of OTQ.
Obviously there is plenty of scientific research and opinions out there and I think we are both right and wrong.
I think every runner is just different and responds differently to different training. But I like to debate about it and I'd love to hear others input.
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