Going too slow on easy days (?)

Yes, you should try to run slowly on your easy days but not so slowly that you're running with poor form. Don't worry too much about HR, just run so that you feel very comfortable and smooth.

Adifan wrote:

Yes, you should try to run slowly on your easy days but not so slowly that you're running with poor form. Don't worry too much about HR, just run so that you feel very comfortable and smooth.

There are a ton of sub 2:10 marathoners in Japan laughing at you right now.

OP, the Japanese do 8:00-8:30 pace on easy days. They average sub 5:00 pace for marathons. Take it easy. Enjoy the ride.

you Still get the good benefits capillaries enzymes mitochondria

As long as biomechanics still good it’s good...

Beats the hell out of sitting on the couch

I think it depends on what you're training for.

At the moment, I am running around 100 miles a week with at least two big sessions in preparation for a marathon. My non-session days are just about getting in the miles and still being able to hit the big sessions, I run to easy feel and don't worry about form.

If I was running about 50 miles a week I would probably think a bit more about making my easy runs not too easy.

island fever runnnnnnn wrote:

There are a ton of sub 2:10 marathoners in Japan laughing at you right now.

OP, the Japanese do 8:00-8:30 pace on easy days. They average sub 5:00 pace for marathons. Take it easy. Enjoy the ride.

Obviously many people have had great success running easy miles very easy. I am trying to get myself to run easier and slow on my easy days, but I can definitely say that I don't fully understand the concept except that you're spending more time running which would help your endurance.

How can a 5:00 min./mi. marathon pace guy run 8:00-8:30 min./mi. pace without drastically different form?

I am not nearly as fast as them, but I feel like I have to drastically change my form if I slow down to 8:30 min./mi. pace.

island fever runnnnnnn wrote:

Adifan wrote:

Yes, you should try to run slowly on your easy days but not so slowly that you're running with poor form. Don't worry too much about HR, just run so that you feel very comfortable and smooth.

There are a ton of sub 2:10 marathoners in Japan laughing at you right now.

OP, the Japanese do 8:00-8:30 pace on easy days. They average sub 5:00 pace for marathons. Take it easy. Enjoy the ride.

Rupp and Farah went 5:30 to 5:40/mi average on easy days. Salazar was shitting on Farah when he took him over to train him, because Farah was running easy days on 6:30/mi pace. Salazar said Farah is just burning calories without getting any better and dropped his easy pace by ~1 min/mile.

What followed? Massive performance explosion (not saying the easy pace is the main cause, but might have contributed).

The Tinman Elite are known to keep their easy days really easy, but weren't able to show up during the last 2 big races (BU 5k and OT).

So there are definitely multiple philosophies regarding easy days. Salazar thinks that you don't have to be super fresh each time during workout days, whereas Tinman and others want full recovery to occur during easy days.

You used a coach who is currently suspended for anti doping charges as an example? Yikes.

And Tinman Elite does the standard American easy days of 7:00/mile, give or take. Look at NAZ elite. Same paces as Tinman on easy days. 1-6-8 at the marathon trials on the women's side. Fauble going 2:09.

We are talking an entire community of runners here (the Japanese) who are the best at the marathon, aside from Kenya and Ethiopia. And when you look at those two countries, you see VERY easy days. Just like the Japanese. Ever run with a Kenyan? You'll likely see some 9:00-10:00 miles near the beginning on runs, getting down to 7:00 flat. Maybe.

But, sure, use your drug cheats as an example. The human body can only handle so much. The ONLY way to run elite and handle fast easy days, with workouts, is with the aid of drugs.

You our WRONG again!

If your easy days are having a negative affect on your other days you're running them too hard. If the other days are going like you want whatever you're doing on your easy days is fine. Running slower will allow you to run more on those days and that's a plus. As someone else said, lots of really fast people run really slowly at times and seem not to destroy their form.

Solinsky - never slower than 6:00/mi on easy days in HIGH SCHOOL. Each run had a decent aerobic pace.

El Guerrouj - lots of 40-45 min runs/doubles at 5:00-5:10/mi pace or even faster.

Like people listed examples of runners being successful with slow easy runs, there are also runners who were successful with fast distance runs. I'm saying we can't generalize a "perfect" easy pace, it is highly individual, and depends on the whole training program.

Yes, going fast on easy days might not leave you 100% fresh and tapered into a workout. But is that a problem? Maybe the body adjusts even more if you do a solid workout when it's a bit tired, than when you are always super fresh.

I do believe many HSers go too fast on their easy days (see Milesplit summer training logs, 4:50-5:00 mile PR girls doing easy runs at 6:30 pace and more..), but there might also be people who go so slow on purpose that it's holding them back.

It's important to differentiate between a "pure recover run/shuffle", and a "easy run/distance run" where you also want to get aerobic benefits.

I got worse and worse by stupidly forcing myself to go slower on easy days in order to be fresher for workouts: instead of being fresher, my legs felt heavier and i was able to do less and less workouts.

Of course there are plenty of examples for the opposite, so my advice is to keep do what sound more right to you, without caring to much about what others do

I used to be the biggest anti-super easy pace because I thought it'd wreck my form or whatever. Started running with my fiancee and really have had no ill-effects. My stride just shortens...I've felt really good the next day running pretty much. Can still run plenty fast when I need to. It's not a common thing, but will see if it translates to races. My guess is ideally I'm running easy/recovery days from 7:30-9:00 pace but a day at 10:00 pace won't have any real negative effects and might be a good substitute for taking time off.

If you read Scott Fauble's book or look at his Strava he is always complaining about the group running to fast on easy days. The slower the better on easy days.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

El Guerrouj - lots of 40-45 min runs/doubles at 5:00-5:10/mi pace or even faster.

He later admitted he was training too hard and slowed down.

you missed this part....... wrote:

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

El Guerrouj - lots of 40-45 min runs/doubles at 5:00-5:10/mi pace or even faster.

He later admitted he was training too hard and slowed down.

Also an obvious drug cheat.

I've always disliked the "hard days hard, easy days easy" mantra. Mostly because I don't think your hard days should really be that hard, but also because I don't think your easy days should be that easy. That doesn't mean I support, say, a 15:00 5k guy doing all their mileage at sub-6 pace, that's a surefire way to a quick burnout, but I do think it's possible to run too slow on your easy days.

I'll give myself as an example. When I was at my fittest (~14:30/~30:00) my easy days always ended up hovering around 7:00. Some days I'd feel really beat up and only go 7:30-7:40, while other days I'd get in a great rhythm and hit 6:30s the whole way. But the average was probably around 7:00 (typically over rolling hills) I sincerely believe that if I had gone much slower on my easy days my fitness would have suffered for it. It's not that those 7:00 runs were hard, they were always very relaxed and conversational, but they were just hard enough that I felt like they were building me up. I was tired after them. I felt like I had accomplished something after them. I never got that same feeling on the rare runs where I'd go 8-8:30 pace. Sure I would have felt fresher for workouts if I'd gone slower, but so what? Workouts aren't races and I see no reason why you should feel super rested for them.

That doesn't mean that there's no place for very slow running. My cooldowns for example would always be around 9-10:00 pace. But if you're only doing 2 hard workouts a week you have 5 days/week left to do whatever you want with them. Why wouldn't you take advantage of that?

Btw, another example to support laterunnerphil: Jonas Hampton. From 14:52 in college to 2:12 and top-10 in the trials. Does most of his running at 6 flat pace and has for years. I'd hazard a guess that that's a huge part of why he's improved so much.

Go by feel. If you're feeling great on an easy day and feel like you can handle a faster pace without fatiguing yourself for a workout the next day or in a couple days go for it. I don't think you need to constrain yourself to a particular pace for easy days. But it's definitely not advisable to force yourself to to be slightly uncomfortable on easy days. Better to hit a single each week then a home run each week for two months and then get injured.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

It's important to differentiate between a "pure recover run/shuffle", and a "easy run/distance run" where you also want to get aerobic benefits.

This part is key.

Calling the pace easy/recovery pace makes no sense, as they are two different paces.

Recovery pace is for after races or hard efforts where the goal is to speed recovery.

Easy pace is pace is just pace you should run on a non-workout day.

8-8:30 min pace isn't that easy after huge workouts and 150+ mpw