"easy pace": how fast should I be running?

Salazar would say yes

tinman would say no

B/c Jack said so wrote:

Should I be running faster on my easy days?

No.

Do your easy runs based off of feel. Daniels says your easy pace should be 6:20, but for what distance? 5, 6 miles? If you're doubling up on easy days going 3 or 4 in the morning at 7 minute pace and 6 at night at 7 minute pace you will recover better and get more of an aerobic benefit.

No especially not if your easy days are still longer runs. now say you are doing 80 miles/week and on Sunday you have a rest day that is only 3-4 miles, then I would say running 6:30's rather than 6:45-7 won't make much difference...... On the flip side of that, it is very debatable whether you would get any additional aerobic benefit from running a 3-4 miles at 6:30s rather than 7s when you are doing high mileage throughout the week.

My recommendation, if you feel the pace you've been doing your easy runs at has helped you recover and prep for the long run and workouts during the week don't change.

Are you in peak PR shape? If you couldn't PR at this point in your season, then the tables might not be accurate.

All your easy runs should be by feel. Going by VDOT tables is stupid.

I think a lot of people agree JD easy paces are on the fast side.

They certainly feel that way to me.

I view his vdot easy pace as an upper limit on how fast an easy day should be. Running slower is fine.

I am not calling it a cause but I will say every time I use JD VDOT table for easy paces, I get injured. I feel like they are too fast

You do not calculate your VDOT based on PRs. You base you VDOT on your most recent race.

Murphy22 wrote:

Do your easy runs based off of feel.

This. Except when that's too fast. Then slow down.

Going by feel does not work for all- when I go "easy" without looking at my watch until the end I go 20-30 secs per mile faster than the tables say I should. For some reason 6:30-6:40 pace seems very easy to me, but 6:15 is hard. The only way I can go easy without looking at my time the whole time, is to look at my heart rate. Zone 2 and zone 3 heart rate for me are equally as "easy". Actually zone 2 or slower than 7 min pace feels very uncomfortable for me- like I'm braking the whole time and I feel like a robot.

When I a faced with a problem like this I always ask myself the question 'What would Dane do?'. Typically the answer to this question is that Dane would get in a RV and drive the distance, so that is what I do.

Hope this helps.

Easy days should be based off of feel.

You have some professionals that run at 6:00 pace for all their easy and long runs, then you have other guys with the exact same PRs and training for the same distance that run 6:30-7:00 pace.

Just run by feel, some guys easy pace will be slower than others. It just depends on the individual.

I'm a mid-high 16 5K guy. Last year, I started training with a group of seven guys who are consistently under 16:00, two of them are sub 15:30. I used to do all of my easy runs at 6:45-7:30 pace. I always felt that I wasn't getting anything out of going slower than that, whether I felt like it or not. I was shocked when I started running with this group on non-workout days and found that our paces were almost always 8:00-9:00 pace. Once in a great while, we'll dip down below 7:30 pace, but the vast majority of the time we are jogging around 8:30 for 8-12 miles. It took some getting used to at first to be sure, but I've found that my body is recovering better than ever before, and I'm able to run much faster on workout days, which should be the end goal.

two types of easy days :

recovery easy:recovery, run slow and reap benefits

maintenance easy :maintain fitness these days so not too slow

I run about 5:25-5:30 pace for the marathon , my recovery days are upwards of 745-830 pace, and easy maintenance days are 6:30-7:00

lameo wrote:

two types of easy days :

recovery easy:recovery, run slow and reap benefits

maintenance easy :maintain fitness these days so not too slow

I run about 5:25-5:30 pace for the marathon , my recovery days are upwards of 745-830 pace, and easy maintenance days are 6:30-7:00

^^^^^Exactly this^^^^^

Be logical.

First, differentiate between "easy days" and "recovery days".

I would ague that DRF doesn't include an intensity for recovery days. His "E-Pace" is more like aerobic threshold, but is probably too fast if you're really looking to recover from a hard workout. However, I like the DRF "E-pace" for many base-building runs and the last 1/2 of some long runs, but it's not sensible to use it as a recovery intensity.

Even Vigil is saying that you should only be @ 60% vVO2 on recovery days, which is much slower and more sensible that what you'll see in DRF.

I know exactly how you feel, and I can relate to all of this, though my paces are a bit slower than yours.I, too, get drawn into picking up the pace in easy runs--the braking/robot thing you mention is the prefect way to describe it. I feel very awkward at running 8:15 or slower. Even 8:00 feels awkward--with the exception of my first mile or two after a workout or long run day.To the OP: the consensus among the experts (coaches, charts, etc.) is that it is better to err on the slower side.

Going by feel wrote:

Going by feel does not work for all- when I go "easy" without looking at my watch until the end I go 20-30 secs per mile faster than the tables say I should. For some reason 6:30-6:40 pace seems very easy to me, but 6:15 is hard. The only way I can go easy without looking at my time the whole time, is to look at my heart rate. Zone 2 and zone 3 heart rate for me are equally as "easy". Actually zone 2 or slower than 7 min pace feels very uncomfortable for me- like I'm braking the whole time and I feel like a robot.

Here's the best thing I've seen on the internet regarding easy runs:

http://www.logicoflongdistance.com/2013/01/what-is-easy-run.html