What’s up runner? Coach Kyle here!
I ran with a client of mine during one of our normal club trail runs yesterday and we chatted a bit about the struggle of keeping group runs easy.The route was trail with many hills and him and I WALKED them because it was an easy recovery run.I noted that many of the other attendees were spending much of this and other group runs in a ‘moderate’ effort zone, not easy but not a workout.But the problem is they’re STILL TRYING TO DO WORKOUTS.So here you have runners slowing their recovery but not getting a true workout in. What does this do?Well, it primarily (as I mentioned) hinders your ability to recover from previous workout days, so when you do come to your workout day you are executing a slightly less high quality workout.How you do solve this?I discussed with my client having a heart rate max for easy runs. He said he’s always been confused by all the info out there concerning heart rate zones, and I agreed, they’re so much different information. But I like to simply use HR only for easy running, and to do this I generally use the Maffetone Method of (most simply) taking 180-age for a max easy run HR and setting an alert.This helps solve one of the primary problems I see runners making, not doing true easy runs!If you look at successful amateurs (simply those improving the most) to elites, they do the vast majority of their running at an easy conversational pace. Another way to calculate a rough easy pace range is take your recent 5k time times 1.25 to 1.5 for an easy pace range or adding 90-120 seconds on to your marathon pace.Like I said, it takes dedication to run truly easy, especially around other people! The ego wants you to run faster, harder, longer. But if you’re training to run the best you possibly can, you gotta slow down to speed up!Reply back here if you think you are running the bulk of your mileage too quickly and we’ll find out 🙂 I had two runners both tell me today that they did actually push it a bit too hard during that run yesterday! -Coach Kyle
“I think you nailed it there Kyle. After running two races last weekend I was not recovered at all yesterday. I thought about that last night wondering if I should have slowed down. In the beginning I started slow to ease into it but at the split, picked it up and went a bit to hard from there. Goal on Thursday for me…slow down and keep HR lower. I think 150 avg will be a decent range for me? “
“I did overdo it yesterday- was supposed to be an EZ run, but I pushed the hills a bit more that I wanted to. Rest today”