want an answer wrote:
I am getting really annoyed that my breathing and heart rate are really high on easy runs. How am I supposed to get better if every run I do feels like I am breathing hard even at a slow pace. I feel like if I slow it down my breathing and heart rate will still be the same as before. I would appreciate some people's insight on this annoying problem I am having.
I realized this after 4 years of running and the actions I took completely changed me as a runner.
Here's what I did
In the morning, run as easy as you possibly can. I'm talking 9-10 min pace, who cares about the pace, find a fat jogger and go slower. When you feel your HR increase too much or you start heating up or breathing hard, slow down more. Focus on the natural spring in your legs, not powering through at all it should feel automatic like a reflex, and standing tall using your core muscles to stabilize. These cues helped me.
Can you even run easy? No? That's a ridiculous problem as you acknowledge for someone who's probably fairly quick in races.
You need to become better at running slow, so that you can use slow running as a training tool to get faster. Right now your "easy pace" is slow, as you say, so it's not helping your workouts. But it's also too difficult for you to recover or do significant miles. The easy pace technique you will work on will allow you to run effortlessly except on the most tired of days, it'll be like you're literally taking a stroll which will feel great to finally be capable of.
In the afternoons, start out at that ridiculously easy pace from the mornings for the first 1 mile or so. You may find that the "technique" you use for that form is slightly different than for your usual pace. Try to slowly speed up while keeping the effortless form.
You don't HAVE to run doubles but those 5-20 min in the mornings help. You're not going to want to run more than that since it will take time to develop your "effortless" technique.
When I did this, I'd also do some max sprint training for the first 2-3 weeks. Nothing special, I'd just do some all out 100s and some quick 200s on the track. I can't say it played a big role. Later on I'd try to run up a steep hill "effortlessly" which was really really tough, I'd almost devolve back into my previous "inefficient" form.
My "effortless form" started at around 10 min pace probably, and it wasn't all that easy for me even though I could run 4:2X/mile at the time. Over the course of 2-3 months it became somewhere like 6:30-7:30 pace and truly effortless gliding. I noticed that it used my hamstrings more than my previous technique and had me stand with hips more forward, I almost felt like my hips were floating about the ground - I mention this because psychologically these cues may help you achieve this - I do hope so. I ran in lightweight racers for all my mileage on mostly hard surfaces.
I went from struggling to run 50mpw to running 100mpw with 3 workouts a week and 20 mile long run within those 3 months which was an incredible improvement.