Becoming A Five-Tool Runner

In baseball, there's a term for the ideal position player: the Five-Tool Player. This player can hit for average, hit for power, run the bases fast, throw hard/far/accurately, and excel defensively. All players strive to master all five tools, but few players actually possess them.

For the competitive runner, I believe, there is a similar set of five 'tools' they should strive to develop. Perhaps a better term for the runner might be 'five paces', as there are five sets of paces that runners should have in their training repertoire. These are the types of paces that should be touched on year-round, but at different intensity levels based on any upcoming race schedules. These paces -- these tools -- will help you train smarter and race faster.

Here they are:

A runner's five 'tools' (or paces):

1. Easy. This is an easy effort. Real easy. Like, laughably easy. So easy, it should feel like you're not really getting any work in. That's because you're not trying to get work in -- you're trying to recover. Easy efforts are for recovery after hard days. You're probably running them too fast; slow down.
2. Steady State. Also known as aerobic threshold, basically this one straddles the line between the fast end of your natural training pace and the slow end of your marathon pace. Steady State should feel like those runs where you can just run effortlessly, naturally fast. This is the effort where running feels free and fun, like you could go on forever and nothing can hold you back. Steady State running gives you the most aerobic bang for your buck: you get great development without beating yourself up too bad. 
3. Tempo/Threshold. Everyone has a different name for this one; some people call it tempo running, others threshold, and still others call it lactate threshold or LT. In terms of absolute paces, this coincides with your 15k-Half Marathon race pace, or your current 5k pace plus 15-30 seconds per mile. When coaches instruct you to run comfortably hard, this is what they're talking about. You're riding right on that red line for an extended period of time...any faster would be too close to a race effort, while any slower wouldn't really be that challenging.
4. Specificity. Well, specificity for all you high school, college, and all-around non-marathoner-types. Specificity is your goal mile, 3k, 2 mile, 5k, 8k, or 10k pace...whatever your goal race distance is. Some people call this VO2max training; those people don't really know what VO2max is, they're just trying to sound smart and scientific. These are the hard but controlled interval workouts that get you into mean racing shape. 
5. Fun fast. Here I'm talking about strides, goal 800 pace, just your general scrawny distance runner Usain Bolt dreams. Fun Fast is all about leg speed, turnover, and the feeling of running effortlessly quick. I've said this before and I'll say it again: you can't ever expect to race fast if you don't practice...well...running fast.

Sometimes it's interest to interpret this kind of philosophy by looking at what's not in it, as opposed to what is. You'll notice something glaringly obvious is missing: an intermediate, normal, everyday training pace. You know, the pace you naturally fall into when you go out for a run. Not that that's a bad pace to be running; it's just that that's not training, that's running. If you want to run, go for it. Knock yourself out. Have fun. Don't let anyone tell you what to do. But if you want to train, if you want to race to the best of your ability, then be smart about it.

There are two problems with that everyday training pace. 1) You probably run it way too much. And when you do the same thing over and over again, you stop adapting to it. You improve when you introduce a new stimulus and then adapt, but when you never introduce a new stimulus (read: run the same effort every day), then you'll eventually reach a plateau and stop improving. And 2) that training pace exists in a weird middle ground where it's fast enough to beat you up and break you down a little bit, but it's not quite fast enough for you to gain a ton of aerobic benefit. So when you run it too often, it's high-risk, low-reward running -- not an optimal way to train.

When you're just starting out, of course you'll be running normal training pace more often. Just the act of running -- any running -- will be a stimulus for your body that will lead to improvement. And the lines between those five 'tools' will probably be pretty blurred. That's totally normal; you don't develop those skills without practice. But as you get more experience, that normal training pace should begin to disappear from your weekly schedule, to be replaced by more thought-out, reasoned efforts. The more you vary your training, the more stimulus you'll give your body to improve.

So that's it, the five tools of distance running. You don't have to include them all equally all the time, but they are effort bands you should strive to include in your training on a consistent basis.