Was that 4 mile3 recovery really neccessery

Most people do need to run big mileage to reach their potential (I'm not persuaded by, "you don't need to" - that's irrelevant to what's in your best interest). It's why every world class middle distance runner trains at 60-70+ miles per week.

@@StrengthRunning I guess we should define our terms. When I say big mileage I mean 75+ miles per week. I don’t consider 60 miles as particularly big mileage. I’d agree 60 miles a week is good for a middle distance runner. That’s what I did for 1500-5000 last season. I personally feel I need 80+ miles to do the marathon justice.

@@josephgonzalez_ I think that's the problem. Your opinion is your personal opinion while mine is a professional opinion.

As with the concept of fartlek - the freedom & fun of shifting gears at will, I constantly messed around changing surface (too much of an unchanging road camber is a killer = injuries), gait, rhythm, style = Japanese low crouch "shuffle" to a full, long "African stride" with kick. A front-of-the-pack "semi-pro" triathlete for more than a decade, I never used a HR monitor, log book, or disciplined training regimen, and I won & placed consistently. I had intimate knowledge of my machine & didn't need modern telemetry to tell me so. That and fortunate to be a natural runner & having, @62, still two good knees which have never let me down. I liked & understood what you said about slowing down hurting. Making yourself go slow has consequences in that most people when they do this simply truncate their normal gait which becomes really just a protracted isometric. Do a press in a doorway for an hour - or even 15 minutes. Same result. When I did slow steady distance I willfully (actually trance-like blissfully) got lost in thought tinkering with styles as mentioned above with one key limiter, closing my mouth & breathing through my nose only. You can imagine how I laughed when years later when the gimick training masks came out. "Sheesh! Just close your mouth!" People are so funny. Anyway, this stuff will feel weird at first. But that's the idea. Make yourself get used to it. But keep a sense of fun & exploration in your mind. The Zen of it. I'm a former SAR/Research Diver & life-long free diver - achieving a comfort level in harsh, chaotic environments while tolerating/functioning well within the constant hindrance of heavy, cumbersome, "fiddly" gear, to me requires a very similar mindset. Combine the nasal breathing with a Japanese Shuffle. An easy, simple way to achieve this odd crouched run is to concentrate on your eyes (your head really). They should not bounce - but subtly slide from side to side. Just play with it. But stress and impact will be greatly reduced and you may get to where you can't recall the last time you were injured. I hope this makes sense & I didn't insult of bore you with this ramble. Good luck & Aloha from Kona.

PS- I forgot to mention. The secret advantage of this is you're able to take it easy while still improving breathing & recovery rate. It's hard to do at first, but that's the point.

That is a gross oversimplification. You can get speedier by running more!