LSD vs Speed

LSD was abused by hippies during the 60s and 70s. These gangly nomads roamed the earth like tribal packs seeking nothing more than another mile. LSD (Long Slow Distance) was the path to road racing nirvana. America's greatest distance runners ran an absolute ton of miles. Bill Squires of The Greater Boston Track Club would say "the long run puts the tiger in the cat."

Looking back on a lifetime of over-distance, many of these same guys are struggling to continue to run or are not running at all. The current philosophy is to increase volume without increasing miles. This is done in many different ways.

We increase volume through basic training exercise. The exercise keeps our heart rate up while we are not running and builds muscular strength which makes us more efficient, stronger runners. We hammer in between sets of basic training exercise to get our heart rate up and to teach us to run faster. Two hundred to three hundred meters of 5K race pace running per interval get us toward lactate threshold before we stop and pump out more exercise.

The average of 20 miles running & 4,000 repetitions of exercise per week gives us the volume of someone running 40 miles a week. Our legs are fresher and bodies are stronger.

It is also becoming accepted that running fast is better for aging runners than running slow. Speed of paces usually brings us more forward with our foot strike, increases our rate of turnover, decreases the time our foot spends on the ground and gives us a feeling of "rolling" or "floating". Research suggest that impact lessons with increase speed.

We get faster races out of fewer miles!