Why Your Easy Runs Should Be Slower Than You Think

When you sign up for your first 10K or half marathon, it's natural to want to feel the training. If you don't finish tired, the run doesn't seem to count. So every run ends up a little too fast: not an interval session, but not easy either. That "doing fine, but pushing a bit" pace is where most recreational runners live.

The problem: it tires you enough that you never fully recover, but not enough to make you improve the way a truly hard session would.

What well-trained endurance athletes do

A review by Stephen Seiler, one of the researchers who has studied this most, reports that in well-trained endurance athletes around 80% of sessions are done at low intensity. The rest is dominated by truly hard sessions. The middle ground takes up much less space.

These are athletes who train far more hours than you or I. You don't need to copy them, but the principle carries over.

What about recreational runners?

A Spanish study tested it with 30 recreational runners over ten weeks (Muñoz and colleagues, 2014). Both groups did the same total load and the same amount of hard work; one did almost everything else easy, the other spent much more time at a medium pace. Both improved their 10K: 5.0% in the mostly-easy group and 3.6% in the other. With only 30 people, that difference wasn't statistically significant, so it doesn't prove one approach is better. What it does show is that keeping easy days easy didn't hold anyone back.

How to know if you're running easy: the talk test

While you run, say a sentence of several words out loud.

• If you can say it comfortably, you're running easy.
• If you're not sure you can talk comfortably, you're at the border, already a bit beyond easy.
• If you can't, you're running hard.

In a study of 24 adults (Ballweg and colleagues, 2013, on stationary bikes), the talk test gave very similar results from one day to the next. The "I'm not sure I can talk" point tended to fall slightly above the first threshold. So once you start to wonder, slow down a little.

It's harder than it sounds

At first you'll feel ridiculously slow. On hills you may have to slow down almost to a walk, and your watch may show a pace you'd rather not post. That's normal, and it's exactly the part that's hardest to stick with.

How to set your zones, use heart rate without being fooled by your watch, and build a week from 5K to the half marathon is all in What the Road Won't Tell You, with every source cited at the end.

Sources: Seiler S. What is best practice for training intensity and duration distribution in endurance athletes? IJSPP. 2010;5(3):276-291. Muñoz I, et al. Does polarized training improve performance in recreational runners? IJSPP. 2014;9(2):265-272. Ballweg J, et al. Reliability of the talk test as a surrogate of ventilatory and respiratory compensation thresholds. JSSM. 2013;12:610-611.

This article is for general information and doesn't replace the advice of a health professional or coach.