Why most of your runs should feel too easy

Ask a group of new runners how their training feels and most will say "hard". Ask elite marathoners and the answer is surprising: the majority of their weekly mileage is slow enough to hold a conversation. That is not laziness. It is the foundation that makes the hard days possible.

The 80/20 idea in plain words

Roughly four out of five runs in a week should be easy, and one in five should be genuinely challenging. Easy running builds the aerobic engine: more capillaries, more mitochondria, stronger tendons. It does this with very little fatigue, so you can repeat it day after day.

The problem is the grey zone in between. A run that is "a bit hard" every day is too tiring to recover from and too slow to improve your top end. Over a few months it usually ends with a plateau or a niggle.

How to find your easy pace

• Talk test. You can speak in full sentences without gasping.
• Nose test. For a minute or two you could breathe through your nose only.
• Heart rate. Roughly 65–75% of your maximum, if you use a watch.
• Feel. At the end you could turn around and run the same distance again.

If you are worried that someone on Strava will see your pace, rename the run "recovery". Problem solved.

What a balanced week looks like

For a runner doing four sessions a week: three easy runs (one of them a little longer) and one quality session such as 6 × 3 minutes at 10K effort with 2 minutes of jogging. That is it. Add strides — 4 to 6 relaxed 20-second accelerations — after one or two easy runs to keep your legs quick.

Give it six weeks. Most runners notice that their easy pace gets faster on its own, while the effort stays the same. That is the aerobic base doing its job.

General information for healthy adults, not medical advice. See our disclaimer.