Can easy days be too easy

Keep doing what you are doing.

Easy is a feel, not a pace.

I would say it would be a rare occasion that you would run that slow 9+ minutes per mile.

It can be good for recovery but other than that you are not getting much of a benefit.

I’ll get some push back here for saying this but I’m not wrong.

SamH wrote:

Hi,

I’m a 14 years old and my 5k pb is 18:17. On easy days I try to keep my heart rate under 155 bpm , I have worked that pace from 6:30 per km to 5:30 - 5:50/km. The paces feels easy but not jogging however the Daniels running formula would suggest that I run easy run at 4:34 to 5:10 /km. This just seems quite fast to me.

Is there a point , where you stop getting the benefits of an easy day, if so what pace is this?

Daniel's easy paces are known to be aggressive, but he often says it's just a guideline and you should make they are as easy as you need to recover. He even says 60-65% of max HR is enough to get all the benefits from easy runs, any more doesn't help.

Tinman calculator gives you a range of about 5:10-5:25/k, which is a bit faster than what you are doing. You could start your easy runs at 5:30-5:50/k, and then if you feel good you can get rolling down to 5:10/k pace, maybe even 5:00/k at the last k. As you get fitter, your HR at the same pace will drop and then you can also think about going a bit faster, the race times should also improve them.

Junk miles exist, especially if you plod/shuffle and your form breaks down. That would be at 6:00+ or something for a runner of your performance level, you can use this pace as recovery jog if you feel really beat up from something but it probably won't do a whole lot for your fitness.

Before I started using heart rate my easy runs were in the tinman range but I got injured a lot. To run under 155bpm I had to drop the pace back a lot but I’m getting quicker at the same heart rate every week. Are you suggesting that I should drop the pace and allow the heart rate to catch up or should I stick with the heart rate training I have been doing?

You should ignore tinman and Phil and just run by feel.

SamH wrote:

Before I started using heart rate my easy runs were in the tinman range but I got injured a lot. To run under 155bpm I had to drop the pace back a lot but I’m getting quicker at the same heart rate every week. Are you suggesting that I should drop the pace and allow the heart rate to catch up or should I stick with the heart rate training I have been doing?

That depends on your max-heart rate. I'm not 100% sure that the easy pace caused the injuries - are you making sure you run on soft surface, like grass or dirt trails in the forests all the time? I mostly got injured when I ran on asphalt and concrete. Hard workouts (like 400s at very fast pace) or races can also cause injuries, they have much more impact than easy runs.

I also ran my easy runs WAY too fast in the beginning, and had to slow them down (for me, I needed to be below 140 since my max HR was only 185). So you should definitely stay below 155, in the 140s would probably be good for you since you are young and probably have a max HR around 200 still.

If you have no trails or grass available to run on, then you definitely need to make sure your easy runs are slow, but still not so slow that your form becomes bad (many people overpronate when going super slow/shuffling, but have a better footstrike at a more natural pace).

If your easy days are getting quicker, bit by bit, at the same HR, then you're doing the right thing.

Those formulas are really for adult runners, not too old. My easy days are often faster than the formulas would suggest, perhaps because I've been running for a long time and my base endurance is very good. Some days, though, my easy days are very slow. My goal is to recover so that I can run hard again in a few days.

At your age, you don't yet have the same strength. But you will, if you train consistently. So keep doing what you're doing.

Running is a simple sport, especially at 14 years old. Don't sweat it -- just run, fast if you feel good, slow if not. Some days you'll probably run Daniels' paces (maybe even faster if you catch a good one.) Other days you'll go slower than you are running now.

If you do the above for the next 4 years just about every day good things will happen, guaranteed. Ditch that awful heart rate monitor while you're at it.

Forgot to say: works even better when you do it with friends.

it doesnt matter. if you make your priority to enjoy the easy runs then you cant go too fast or slow.