Easy run pace, and an easy run check

What easy pace is

Easy pace is the pace you can hold while talking in full sentences. That is the talk test, and it is still the best check there is. You should finish an easy run feeling you could have kept going.

In numbers, Run-R uses Jack Daniels' VDOT model: easy running is the range of speeds that cost 62 to 70% of your VDOT. Long runs sit in the middle of the range and recovery runs at the slow end. Slower than the range is never a problem on an easy day.

The easy day trap

Slow running feels like it cannot be doing much. Watches reward a quicker average, friends pull you along, and many runners judge a run by how tired they feel after it. So easy days drift into a medium effort.

The cost is quiet. A run too hard to be easy and too easy to be a workout adds tiredness without much extra fitness. You then turn up to the tempo or interval session tired, run it slower than you should, and the week becomes one long grey effort. Easy days are what let the hard days be hard.

The check above catches the usual version: an easy average with the last few km run quicker and quicker. The average says easy, but a real share of the run was not.

How the check decides

It uses the same rules as the Run-R app. A run is too quick when its pace is more than 12 s per km quicker than the quick end of your easy range. Slow is never a fault. The app also spots a run with a hard block or reps in it, and calls that a workout, not an easy run. Stops and walking breaks are left out of the shares.

80/20 and the evidence

The 80/20 idea comes from Stephen Seiler's work on elite endurance athletes: across sports, about 80% of their sessions were easy (Seiler, International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 2010). Matt Fitzgerald took it to everyday runners in his book 80/20 Running.

The evidence in recreational runners is smaller but points the same way. In a 10 week study of 30 recreational runners, those who did more of their training easy improved their 10K more (Muñoz and others, International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 2014). One small study is support, not proof.

In practice, on four runs a week, 80/20 roughly means one quality session and three easy runs, with the long run counted as easy. That is how Run-R lays out a week.

Pace, heart rate and feel

Pace is the simplest check. Stay inside your easy range, at the slower end after a hard day. Hills, wind and heat make the same effort slower, so on those days let the pace go and keep the effort easy.

Heart rate helps, with limits. Formulas such as 220 minus age can be well off for any one person (Robergs and Landwehr, Journal of Exercise Physiology Online, 2002). Wrist sensors can be unreliable in the first minutes, and heart rate drifts up on long runs and in heat at the same pace. Watch the trend over weeks rather than one run.

Feel is the one you always have. If you cannot speak in full sentences, slow down.

Base building and recovery

A base is a stretch of mostly easy running that raises how much you can handle before harder training. Every Run-R plan starts with one. Add volume gradually: a study of novice runners linked jumps of more than about 30% over two weeks to more injuries (Nielsen and others, Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy, 2014). Strides at the end of a couple of easy runs keep your legs used to moving quickly.

You get fitter while you recover. Most adults need 7 to 9 hours of sleep (National Sleep Foundation, 2015); a few short nights are a good reason to keep the next run easy. Every third or fourth week of a Run-R plan is lighter. A full rest day is training too.

In winter, wear something bright, walk the icy stretches, and use the treadmill when you need to: a 1% incline roughly matches the effort of running outside (Jones and Doust, Journal of Sports Sciences, 1996). Pain that changes how you run, or gets worse as you run, is a reason to stop and see a GP or physio.