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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   3471 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 10, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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How fast would you say an average man should jog?

A while back, I started one of those couch-to-5k routines. It was all intervals. Great, I’m ramping up jog time, 3 minutes, 5, 8. Then suddenly—20 minutes, 2 miles. Huh? I wasn’t even doing my short intervals at 10-minute-mile pace. It was like a cliff for me.

I can’t figure out if I should be pushing up my pace or just reaching for that longer interval.

Longer and easier, the improved speed and fitness will come in time. There really isn't a pace that can be set externally without respect to where you're currently at. Some of the legit fast guys in my running club (roughly 2:35 marathoners, so guys that are running 6:00/mile pace for 26.2 miles) are perfectly happy to trot along at a 10-minute pace on brewery run nights so they can hang out with slower friends. Obviously they do speedwork as well, but there's a lot of value in low aerobic effort running all the way up the ladder. Getting to the point where you're genuinely comfortable at literally any pace that is still a running gait for a half hour is a better starting point than getting frustrated by the fatigue of going too fast. If that pace is 11:30 miles for the moment, then the pace is 11:30 miles for the moment. In a couple months, it'll be 11:00 minute.

I cannot overstate the extent to which comparison is the thief of joy. There's always people that are faster, don't worry about what you feel like you should be able to do. For a guy that didn't pick the sport up till later, I'm pretty decent, occasionally win small races, and it's still super easy to get sucked into being bothered that I'm not as fast as the other guys. The only solution to it just getting accustomed to that.

Thanks.

I’ll try to push up my duration while holding the current pace.

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