am i running my easy days too easy?

hard to say, i would try to keep the pace under 7:50

coach in colorado wetmore doesn't believe in easy days. I actually agree with him cause I went sub 9 in high school and all my "easy days" runs were like 6:25. but when I went to college i started running "easy days like everyone suggested" like 7:30-7:45 pace and I can tell you that was a mistake ran pretty terrible that year

I went sub 8:50 in high school and I disagree with Wetmore.

As a guy who had your exact PR’s sophomore year I think I recall running around 8:20 pace on most easy runs. Don’t listen to these bozos saying to pick it up or worry about easy pace. Everyone is different and if 8:00 feels like the right easy pace then run that. Don’t get caught up with the strava numbers.

ya. i'll bet running like that is pretty effective if you have the strength (or whatever) to do it without injury. Most don't.

This is similar to how Salazar trained Farah and Rupp.

Are you a strength runner or a speed runner or a mix of both?

It'll depend on what kind of runner you are, whether you're more of a short distance fast twitch kind of runner or classic longer distance slow twitch kind of runner. Based on your times, I'd say you fall on more of the FT side which means you should have slower easy runs. Too fast on easy and you'll recruit more anaerobic fibers which goes against what you're trying to build with aerobic easy runs.

With a 4:42 mile, I think you are fine at 7:50-8:10 pace. Remember, it's a pace where you should be able to talk in full sentences with someone. I've also been told you should run a pace that allows you to attack tomorrow's workout.

I'm a 4:50 miler with a 16:50 5K PR. My easy runs are about 8:15-8:25 per mile.

On your easy days, just run for time (60 min etc) no GPS and just run how you feel

There's two goals of an easy run, in order of importance:

1. to recover

2. to produce a small amount of aerobic development

This is more of an art than a science. To achieve these goals, you should find a pace/duration that achieves #1, and maximizes #2. This is a moving target week to week, month to month, year to year.

How do you figure this out? Trial and error mostly. Try running faster/longer and see how you feel in your next workout. Eventually you'll figure out what works for you. Personally, I always err on the side of recovery on an easy day. You don't get faster during workouts, you get faster when you recover from them. You don't get faster if you don't recover...simple as that.

In your case, you're pretty young, so you will likely recover just fine even if you are running a little faster on your easy days, but don't go overboard, remember goal #1 is most important.

As you get older, the priority becomes #1 and its not even close.

I've under sub 4:15 mile and all of my easy days including long runs are in 7:40-8:20 range. This has helped me stay injury free for the last 3 years and attack my workouts. The only effort that should ever matter is your workout effort. Easy runs are meant to be Easy.

Thank you! The last few days I've read up on this forum about how to PROPERLY do your EZ runs and it's helped me. Sometimes, I just go by feel and not look at the watch until the end of the run.

The most correct answer here. People like to bash people who go too fast for their liking on easy days but the truth is if you can recover at a faster pace and have some aerobic development in the process it is huge (this is assuming you are not at risk of injury or are not a (fast twitch mix) of a speed based runner)

Most importantly you should stay relaxed! There should absolutely be no straining and it should feel very comfortable (but of course fast). If you are not relaxed and not comfortable you are going to burn yourself out running a fast pace. I remember running my cool-downs from a hard workout at 6:10-6:05 pace and staying relaxed about it.

It was huge for me I went from a 9:20 guy to a 8:55 guy in 1 year a long time ago back when running sub 9 was a huge thing. Nowadays everyone breaks 9 so it really isn't that special anymore.

When I went to college and stopped the whole sub 6:10 cool-down and at-least 6:25 on easy runs (because I was part of a team and had to run with them). I got a lot worse and nobody on my team could believe I was a sub 9 guy in high school.

Eventually I figured out what was wrong and went back to my old routine of running fast but never hard (running hard too much will burn you out). I got my mojo back but never ended up breaking 14:10 in the 5k so it's safe the say I maximized my potential in high school unfortunately.

Hank Jr nailed it, plus

since you are improving doesn't it make sense that you are the one doing it right and everyone else who is running their recovery days faster is doing it wrong.

Aurthur Lydiard said, "you cannot go too slow for aerobic development".

I have been feeling tired lately, so some of my runs include miles over 9:00 which feels terribly slow...and I too wonder, 'is this doing me any good?' But in past years when I had done the slow mileage, it has worked. So I am sticking with it.

Lydiard also had his guys running at a decent clip in training. Snell and company weren't off running 8min miles. They were running low 6s over some what difficult terrain. There was a quote along the lines of slower running gets results but it takes twice as long...

I always wish AlSal explained why he wanted easy runs at the high end of easy. The guy had a reason for everything and that was the one which I am not sure of.

And this isn't something to be dogmatic about. If you normal easy run pace is 8:00 and you have a day where you are running 9s, don't force it accept you are tired and think about why. The much bigger risk is at the other end when you are feeling good and decide to run some 6:50s...

If you're that 1 in a million person that can run every day at high intensity without getting injured or digging yourself into in a performance-harming hole of fatigue, then it's possible you're running your easy runs too slow.

But if you're like most people, easy should feel easy, and there's more to lose by running easy days a too fast, than too slow.

What's the worst that can happen? You run your easy day a little too slow, and then have the energy to run your workout faster the next day?

I should emphasize that I think the pace is somewhat irrelevant for an easy run. Goal #1 is far more important than #2. Its more about finding that sweet spot. Somedays its fast, sometimes its a shuffle. Either is fine, as long as you are recovering.

This does change as you get older (at least it did for me). When I was young, running an easy day fast was the norm. These days though, I cross train on easy days - the goal is recovery/aerobic dev. I'd much prefer to accomplish that without beating up my legs. That's just me though.

I've run under 30 mins for 10k this year and often have some runs in the 8.20+ per mile pace range, including two so far this week. Like others have said, just go out an run relaxed between the hard workouts and let your body dictate the pace, sometimes it might be faster sometimes it might be slower and that's fine so long as it's relaxed and relatively comfortable. Sticking rigidly to a particular pace range rather than effort/feeling is a mistake.

From what I’ve seen the sweet spot is Mile +3min +-20sec.

So, for a 4:40 miler the range is ~7:20-8:00.

For the question of whether or not you can run too slow on easy days, IMO, the answer is yes. If it weren’t the case why not just walk?

The idea is to get the most volume for the muscle fibers that have the most capacity for aerobic development. The guy here I’ve read who best understands this is Tinman.