Welcome back Tusca,

Long time, no see. It's great to see that you are putting in some nice mileage once again.

I'm sorry I missed this thread. I've been out, injured for a tiny bit. Self-inflicted, of course.
....
There has been much said about training, theory, and so on. But it seems to me that there is only one true path to "speed", and that is through many miles of consistent work, while remaining healthy. The exact formula is different for everyone. I know that 400's don't do a lot for me, but 100's and 200's help my raw speed, and 800's to 2000's help me take that speed up the distance ladder, and the long runs (even mixing in a little fast work.) help bring that on up. And hills are great, too, as well as races (or tempo runs or time trials.)

But I guess it all boils down to personal experience. It took me about 10,000miles to really learn what an "easy" pace was, and it took another 10,000 miles to learn learn a training formula that worked for me. That's experience. Miles are experience. Miles over all kinds of intensity and terrain. That's why so many experienced runners sound like a broken record, and say, "run more." You want a shortcut? Pick better parents, stick to short distances, and take some sort of expensive medical aid - whatever's in style. Right, so. You want to learn to pace? Run on the track with a stopwatch. Only look at the time once a lap. That will teach you something. You want to learn control? - how to mete out your effort? Race. It took me about 40 5k races to figure it out, and even now, I flub 4 out of five. I figure hitting it 1 out of ten times is good. You don't need to wear a watch to race - I have gone both ways and it does nothing for me. If you race frequently and spend some time on the track, and run a lot, you are intimately aware of the pain associated with the sum of your steps to that point in the race. I'd have you ditch the watch and hRM and gps, and all that crap for your easy runs. You don't know what the word "easy" means? Well - go run a 140 mile week out of the blue, and you will learn by about Tuesday. People who say they don't know easy (and I was one, and sometimes I still am...) It's a lack of experience. You need to poke those limits, as Tusca and Jim have - then you know what you can do. And me, too. I'm an idiot sometimes. Running is humbling.

Were you going for an easy pace run or a recovery run? Note that the track is never a good place for a recovery run...

Yeah, I guess I would agree that your recovery run should be somewhere nice, like at a park or somewhere pleasant. And that every mile should feel easier than the last. Otherwise... no recovery. Try ditching the watch on the easy runs. If it truly is an easy run, or a recovery run... do you really care if the logbook says 42.55 or if it says 52.55? What's the difference? Races count. That's about it.