{"id":370749,"date":"2025-12-26T20:56:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T20:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/370749\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T20:56:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T20:56:26","slug":"be-more-hare-than-tortoise-we-break-down-the-science-on-the-benefits-of-slow-running-for-distance-runners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/370749\/","title":{"rendered":"Be more hare than tortoise \u2013 we break down the science on the benefits of slow running for distance runners"},"content":{"rendered":"

The story is a familiar one; when people first start running longer distances, there is often just one goal: go as fast as possible for as long as possible. <\/p>\n

The thing is, after a few months of hitting the same routes as hard as possible, the effort wasn’t equating into improvement. If anything, this approach to running often produces a regression in form. Thankfully, all it takes to get training back on track is to slow right down. Here’s why. <\/p>\n

Why you should want to run slow<\/p>\n

This might seem counterintuitive, but the only way you\u2019re going to be able to perform on a race day or run well with consistency is if your training plan is composed of mostly slow (or, to be more technical, ‘submaximal’) workouts. ‘The value in running slow is so you can run faster,’ says Ben Rosario, a pro running coach and Executive Director of the HOKA NAZ Elite running team<\/a> in Flagstaff, Arizona. ‘What we’ve learned over time is that if you want to perform at a super-high level one day, you can’t expect to do that the day before, or the days leading in.’ <\/p>\n

Rosario also points out that if you\u2019re regularly running as fast as you can for long distances, you\u2019re not actually coming close to your true top speed. If he\u2019s working with an athlete and notices that all of their runs are at the same pace, he recognises an issue. ‘That’s probably more [like] their medium-effort pace. They’re probably not running as hard as they can every day,’ he says. Maxing out your body on every single outing takes a toll on your muscles, tendons, and ligaments, says Rosario. <\/p>\n

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nd3000\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

‘Anecdotally, we definitely see that,’ says Brad Whitley, PT, DPT<\/a>, a physical therapist at Bespoke Treatments<\/a> in San Diego. ‘Generally, if people are including easy runs in their training, consistently, they tend to be a little less injured.’ The key here, Whitley notes, is recovery. ‘If you’re doing back-to-back hard days, you’re just not allowing the recovery mechanisms to occur efficiently. You’ll be stressing that system to a point where it’s not going to be able to have the same effect that it would have if you’re doing an easy run.’<\/p>\n

This is also due to the impact running hard has on your body. When you run fast, you\u2019re creating more force on every stride than you do when running at a more leisurely pace. In doing so, you\u2019re amping the impact on the bones, tendons, and ligaments. ‘I try to stay away from the negative insinuation [that] you’ll get injured if you run faster,’ Whitley says. ‘But I’d say the more times that you run faster, and putting your joints under that load, cumulative stress will compound and yeah, you could increase your risk for injury.’
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There\u2019s more to slow running than just preserving your body from injury, too. Along with giving you the chance to recover, Whitley notes that training this way allows for ‘adaptations that don’t occur with higher level speeds.’ In other words, your slow workouts are affecting your body in ways your fast ones won\u2019t. ‘You’re actually training a very specific system in your physiology to operate at a low heart rate,’ Whitley continues.<\/p>\n

You might have heard the term ‘Zone 2 training<\/a>‘, and that\u2019s what Whitley is talking about. The exact numbers will be different for everyone, but Zone 2 generally refers to sustained exercise at 72 to 82 percent of your max heart rate. When you train in Zone 2, you build mitochondria (which you might remember from biology lessons as the ‘powerhouse of the cell’). With more mitochondria, you\u2019ll be able to produce more energy and recover better, too. <\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t run fast at all. In fact, sprint workouts are actually key to helping you amp the force you create on every stride (and they\u2019ll help your finishing kick on long runs, too), but not every single session can be at your peak output\u2014especially when you\u2019re running multiple days per week.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t think Slow. Think easy.<\/p>\n

You might be reading this as a beginner runner who doesn\u2019t even know what counts as ‘fast’ or ‘slow’. That\u2019s fine. In fact, that\u2019s an important aspect for your mindset in approaching these submaximal workouts. Rather than assigning a value that comes with ‘fast’ or ‘slow’ running tied to a finishing time or a pace, think about your overall effort on each run.<\/p>\n

Jes Woods<\/a>, a Nike Running coach, suggests dropping the term ‘slow’ from your vocabulary. Instead, think of a submaximal session as an ‘easy’ run. ‘If you call my community run \u2018slow\u2019\u2014meanwhile it\u2019s one of my beginner runner\u2019s hardest runs of the week\u2014I\u2019m going full mama bear,’ says Woods. ‘The whole point is to run at a low effort. So your \u2018slow pace\u2019 might feel \u2018easy\u2019 or low-effort one day, and you run that same \u2018slow pace\u2019 another day when you\u2019ve had no sleep and three beers the night before, it no longer feels easy.’<\/p>\n

Woods admits that it can be hard to break the commonly held mindset that workouts should feel hard. ‘I have all of these analogies and coach-isms because historically, it’s been difficult to convince runners to actually slow down and embrace the easy run days,’ she says.
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Not sure how to balance the easy run with your desire to get better? Our three experts agreed that such workouts should actually make up the bulk of your training. Runners should aim to run 80 percent of their workouts slow (or easy), at or below their aerobic threshold. High-effort sessions (think sprint repeats or interval training) should compose the remaining 20 percent of their workouts. ‘This 80\/20 \u2018rule of thumb\u2019 was studied by Dr. Stephen Seiler<\/a> and made popular by Matt Fitzgerald’s book: 80\/20 Running<\/a>,’ says Woods. <\/p>\n

How you structure this depends on how you think about your split. If you take on the week as a whole, you should have hard workouts two days at most. Then, you determine which days are easy and which are for rest. Narrow it down even more to five days, and you have one ‘hard’ day and four easy workouts. For three training days, again, there’s only a single ‘hard’ workout, with a medium-distance shakeout and a long run as your other two sessions.<\/p>\n

No matter how you do it, make sure that you prioritise recovery when you\u2019re creating your plan. ‘I never have two days in a row that are hard or fast,’ Rosario says. ‘There’s always got to at least be one, if not two, slow\/easy days in between.’<\/p>\n

How you can slow down <\/p>\n

Both Rosario and Whitley point to using heart rate as a reliable gauge for effort (which ties back into those Zone 2 principles). ‘Regardless of what shoe you’re wearing, what terrain you’re on, what the weather is, what your stress level is that day, your heart rate is the output data point that you have to be able to assess whether you’re in an aerobic state,’ Whitley says. You\u2019ll need a heart rate monitor to do this, either on your smartwatch or a purpose-built device. Lab tests can determine exactly where that threshold is, but Whitley often uses a simplified version of the MAF 180 formula (a methodology developed by Dr. Phil Maffetone<\/a> in the 1980s to determine the ideal aerobic threshold for exercise) for rough estimates. This is easy: just subtract your age from 180. If you\u2019re 33 years old, 180 minus 33 is 147, so you make sure your effort doesn\u2019t push your heart rate above that number.<\/p>\n

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Westend61\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

If biometrics aren\u2019t your bag, try the tried-and-true method most running coaches use to determine effort, the talk test. ‘I know this sounds old school and unscientific, but it really is true\u2014if you can’t hold a conversation, then you’re not running slow,’ Rosario says.<\/p>\n

This is also called conversation pace by coaches. It introduces another element into the equation, too: the social nature of running. Conversation pace means you can talk to your friends while you\u2019re training, which makes these easy outings way more enjoyable. <\/p>\n

Can supershoes make easy runs better?<\/p>\n

One undeniable influence on running\u2019s speed culture comes from the latest footwear trend: super shoes. These long-distance racing trainers<\/a> have features designed with running efficiency (and therefore, faster race times) as the main priority. Elite athletes have rewritten record books wearing the shoes. Unlike other sports with more specialised equipment that’s are out of reach for weekend warriors, just about any everyday runner (with \u00a3200+) can have their own pair. <\/p>\n

These shoes are built purely for speed, which goes against everything the experts above have discussed about the merits of slowing down. This means your expensive new toys aren\u2019t going to be useful for 80 percent of your workouts\u2014but that’s ok because regular, cushioned running shoes<\/a> are the solution.<\/p>\n

For those with even more money to burn, there’s a fairly new category of training shoe that might be appropriate for the easy run days, ‘super trainers<\/a>‘. These shoes use some of the same high-level materials as the super racing shoes, but aren’t just about record-breaking speed. <\/p>\n