Mark: Easy run, steady run, recovery run, whatever you call them, they tend to make
up the main bulk majority of your running training. What does easy run really mean?
How far and how long should it be, and most importantly, what pace should it be at? Well,
today, I'm going to be trying to clear all of that up for you and exploring just how easy your easy
run should be. [music]
Right then, I don't know about you, but when I cast my eyes over a training plan,
I do allow my eyes to be more drawn towards those spicier, meatier, and I guess you could call them
more glamorous workouts, the fast intervals, the hard tempo runs, even the long run. In reality,
they quite often take up a smaller percentage of our overall training volume when compared to
the easier and steadier runs. That is the crucial point really because it's
these easier and steadier runs where some of the biggest improvements in our fitness can be made,
because they're an opportunity for us to adapt from all that hard work that's
gone into those harder and key workouts. What is an easy run? Well, essentially and
in very basic terms, it should be completed at a controlled effort and a comfortable pace. I quite
often describe it as a conversational pace. A pace that you could happily chat away to a training
partner or friend whilst doing it. Now, in terms of time or distance, well, there isn't really any
set limit with this, but if you are doing some harder key workouts in your training, they're not
going to be any longer than those. In fact, quite often, they'll be a little bit shorter. However,
the primary aspect of an easy run is determined by its relative effort. It should be completed
an easy pace that theoretically, you could sustain all day long. Now, say theoretically
because I'm not suddenly expecting you all to be able to run a marathon or a 24-hour ultra.
Should someone ask you to run an extra kilometer or two, you're not suddenly going to be out
keeling over on the floor. [music]
Now, of course, you may be wondering what is the purpose of these easy runs
in a training plan when all you want to do is to get faster and to improve your performance? Well,
it's worth reminding ourselves that an easy run does play significantly less stress and
impact on our bodies as opposed to one of these harder key workouts, but yet, still helps and
improves that all-important base aerobic mileage. Also, the easy run is one of the most effective
ways of improving our aerobic capacity and cardiovascular system which, in essence,
forms the foundation from which our speed and endurance can be improved
through these key workouts. That, again, is where the easy run comes in because they're perfect
as a form of recovery from those harder workouts. It's a double win. You're getting recovery,
but also, base aerobic mileage. [music]
Right then, how do we navigate how easy an easy run should be? Well, this is the great thing and
the beauty of an easy run, they literally can be as easy as you want them to be. You really
can't run an easy run too slowly, but you can run them too fast. The only limiting factor really
to an easy run is your form and technique. Now, sometimes, as we slow our pace down, our form and
technique can alter in a bad way and almost make the easy run counterproductive. As long as you can
hold your form and technique good and well, then really if you want to drop that pace right down.
Now, I'm making it sound like a breeze but as many of you will know,
it's not that easy. Having that self-restraint and that discipline to drop our pace down can
actually be really difficult, and quite often, we find ourselves settling into a pace and a rhythm
that sits in that gray area of being easy but not really,
and ultimately ending up not an easy run at all. To make sure that we don't fall into this trap,
it's a good idea to have a basic understanding of our training levels and zones. The first
step towards figuring these out is knowing our threshold, which is short for lactate threshold,
which in very simplistic terms to the point at which we switch from working aerobically
to anaerobically. Now, if you want to find out your own threshold, well, I have a full dedicated
video on that already to break it to you, it does require a 30-minute all-out effort. From that,
you can calculate what we call our zones. Specifically, today, we're focusing on our
zone one and zone two. For the heart rate zones, we can calculate them based on the
threshold value provided by that 30-minute effort. It's known as our lactate threshold heart rate,
LTHR. They're represented as less than 85% of LTHR for zone one and 85% to 89% of LTHR for zone two.
When talking about pace, we refer to these as a functional threshold pace, FTP.
These zones would be slower than 129% of FTP for zone one, and also 78%,
and 114% to 129% of FTP for zone two, or also, 78% to 88%. For example, if your 30-minute effort
provided you with a lactate threshold heart rate of 165 bpm and a corresponding pace of 7:10 minute
mile or 4:27 minute kilometer, then you'd aim for the following heart rate and pace values to ensure
that you're keeping your run easy. Heart rate for zone one would be less than 119 and for zone two,
then it would increase to between 120 to 134 bpm. From a pace perspective, then zone one would
be slower than 9:15 minute mile or approximately 5:45 minute per kilometer, and then into zone two,
this would be between 9:15 and 8:10 minute mile or 5:45 and 5:05 minute kilometer.
Fundamentally, those numbers should look nice and low and slow depending on whether you're focusing
on heart rate or pace. Now, on the face of it, an easy run shouldn't be that difficult to get right.
Actually, it's probably the element of training that most of us need the most help
with because we do run them too fast. It's worth pointing out that doing our easy runs too fast
may not only have an effect on our key workouts, those harder workouts, by detracting from them,
but also, you could run the risk of overtraining or even an overuse injury.
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