The Hard Part Isn't the Hard Part: The Role of Easy Days

The Bulk of
​ Our Work

After exploring our warmup in last week's post, I wanted to pivot to the activity that makes up the bulk of our work.  One rough guideline from research of elite runners calls for making 0nly 20% of your workouts hard and the other 80% easy.  

In a given week of summer training for a typical runner in our program, three to four of days will be spent doing easy running. It only seems natural then to consider what those days should look like and why they play such a prominent role in our training.  

The 80/20 rule for running was pioneered by exercise physiologist Stephen Seiler, pictured here with his daughter and professional runner Siren.

Is Full-Steam
​Always the Answer?

Toughness tends to dominate sports culture.  We praise those with unyielding grit.  Phrases like "No pain, no gain" and "Go hard or go home" fill locker room banter and message boards.  

As runners, we certainly need to get comfortable being uncomfortable.  However, that doesn't mean going to the well for a daily drink of hard workouts that push the pace. 

The truth is that hard workouts don't in and of themselves make runners stronger.  This is evident in how terrible runners generally feel following a race or intense workout.  Hard workouts break the body down. 

Real improvement comes from the adaptations that follow hard work as the body responds and recovers, often referred to simply as a training response.  But the body needs time to adapt to a training stimulus and generate a quality training response.  If one stimulus is followed immediately by another, the body won't adapt.  It will just remain beat down until it eventually breaks down completely in injury.  

Furthermore, if the body can't recover from one strenuous stimulus, it won't be in optimal condition to produce another.  Runners essentially end up in a rut: too weak to generate a quality stimulus and too worked to adapt to what little stimulus exists.

The only way to avoid this is to allow ample recovery time between hard sessions, be that races or (for us in the summer) harder workouts.  How much time is that?  That depends on a number of variables, such as the age and fitness of a runner and the intensity (length and pace) of the workout.  Generally, however, this is a window of around two to three days.

I borrowed this image from exercise physiologist and triathlon coach Alan Couzens, who used it to describe high training load with low training response. A lot of pounding away. Not a lot of progress.

So Why Run 
​and Not Rest?

So if the body needs time to respond to one training stimulus before encountering a new one of a similar variety, shouldn't a runner just take time off between workouts?  

A weekly rest day (Sunday for most of our runners) is still important to prevent overtraining, but filling in most of the gaps with easy running rather than rest has some benefits. 

Some people throw around arguments about easy runs clearing lactate.  There is some truth in this for cooldowns immediately following a workout, but those levels return to normal within roughly an hour, so runs on the following days have no such effect.  Others suggest it promotes oxygen and nutrient delivery to muscles to aid in their recovery.  It's possible that a higher heart rate might mean a greater flow of oxygen and nutrient-rich blood, but the scientific evidence is limited.

The primary benefit of running on recovery days is that it provides an additional opportunity to run.  Higher volumes of running--as long as they are progressed to gradually, done with appropriate intensity, and capped before the body reaches its limit--are correlated with improved fitness and performance.  Any miles accumulated on those days contribute toward that volume.

Furthermore, some experts in the running community suggest that the right sort of running in a pre-fatigued state can improve the adaptation the body makes to a training stimulus, recruiting new muscle fibers due to the fatigue of those used in the recent race or hard workout.  Ultimately, runs done within a roughly 24-hour window following a workout could enhance fatigue resistance.

Even outside of that window, others point to the opportunity for easy running--when done correctly--to improve form and the body's ability to use fat as an additional fuel source.  Lastly, it offers an opportunity to step away from stress about paces and splits and just enjoy the beauty of a run through the woods or exchange stories and laughter with teammates.

​How Easy is Easy?

But for all of these benefits of easy running to emerge, they have to be done at the right speed.  Often runners push the pace on these days far too much.  On a recovery day, this digs a deeper hole for the body to recover from and throws runners right back into the cycle addressed above.

Running too fast on easy days turns the sport into a constant grind with a mental toll as high as its physical one.  The runs simply become about survival rather than an opportunity to fall in love with running or concentrate on form.

As I mentioned in my assessment of our season, I think our easy runs were probably too fast on many occasions last year, my own included.  This has only been confirmed by looking at the easy run paces of some of the top 5k athletes in the country. 

Joe Klecker, Sam Gilman, Olin Hacker, and Conner Mantz each finished in the top 10 in last year's national championship in the 5000m with times between 13:25 and 13:30.  That's around 4:18 per mile in case you were wondering.  If you plug those race times into Tom Schwartz's calculator (which unfortunately is now behind a paywall), you get a range of paces for easy and recovery runs ranging from around 6:00-7:15 per mile.  When I examined the actual easy runs of these individuals, the majority of them were in that range, with an average hovering around 6:35.  None of them were faster than 6:00, and quite a few (especially for Hacker) were slower.

On the women's side, both Abby Nichols and Katie Camarena finished in the top 15 at the 5000m national championship, with times around 15:30 (roughly 5:00 per mile).  When healthy, Molly Seidel is one of the top American distance runners.  At the Chicago Marathon last October, she ran a 2:23:07, (approximately 5:27 per mile).  The calculator gives an easy/recovery range of 6:45-8:15 per mile for these performances.  Looking at the actual training paces of these runners, all three kept their easy runs predominantly in this range, with an average of around 7:45.  Again, none were faster, and Molly Seidel--who does many of her runs on trails--often went a bit slower.

I'm not arguing that these runners are all using Schwartz's calculator.  I'm saying that they all stay within its recommendations.  That supports its effectiveness in offering paces for easy runs.  So what do those paces look like for us?  As a few examples, someone running a 17:00 5k would have an easy/recovery range of roughly 7:30-9:00 per mile.  Someone at 22:00 would get around 9:30-11:30.  And someone at 27:00 would see 11:45-14:00. 

One thing to realize is that there's no set pace for easy runs.  There needs to be room for flexibility depending on things like temperature, terrain, and how a runner is feeling, especially on a recovery day.  An exact pace simply leads to paranoia that an easy day simply doesn't need.  That's why easy days include a suggested range.  I've built a table of paces based on race times that gives ranges close to Schwartz's calculator, which you can access here.  

Molly Seidel won bronze in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics. She also knows the value of running slow, even running her Slowest Mile Challenge in an impressive 36:56.

Easy vs Recovery

Often in running circles the question arises as to whether easy and recovery days are the same thing.  In fact, whole forum threads exist on the topic. 

Ultimately it all depends on semantics and how individuals prefer to use the terms.  I would say for us there is overlap, as certainly recovery days should be easy.  However, I would say they should actually be easier.

Recovery days for us always happen the day after a race or hard workout.  Within our weekly schedule for summer training, that means Wednesdays and Saturdays. 

Recovery days don't have to include running.  They could be an absolute rest day, but ideally they should include some activity to increase fitness.  This could take the form of cross training with what I've learned to call NICE (non-impact cardio exercise) work--biking, elliptical, swimming, arc trainer, or aqua-jogging.

If running does happen, the pace is generally a bit slower than a standard easy day.  The duration is also shorter, as is often the quantity of ancillary work after the run.

Easy days tend to fill the remaining slots--Monday and Thursday--in our week.  Barring injuries or other extenuating circumstances, these will always include running and a medium amount of strength and mobility work.  It's okay if the pace creeps a little bit faster toward the end of these if a runner is feeling good, but they should still be within a comfortable and conversational range.

On the Trail to Success​

To help promote the proper role of easy runs, our Thursday runs in June will all be on the Perry County Lake Trail.  The terrain of trails helps serve as a regulator on speed, and the scenery gives runners something to focus on besides pace.  In fact, I would actually recommend runners just turn off the GPS on these days and run by feel.  It's okay if paces on these days fall below the recommended range.

As I also mentioned in our season review, varying the terrain one runs on spares the body some of the repetitive stress that can lead to injury.  With a mixture of grass, trail, and road in our week, we should be in good shape. 

As the summer progresses, I'm hopeful we can give the new Legion Lake Trail a test run.  some of these Thursday trail runs will also be swapped out for neural sessions.  We'll save an extensive discussion of those for another post.

The terrain of the lake trail helps keep the pace in check on easy runs, while the levee provides a nice opens space for some strides.

​Snacking on Speed

It's important that every day of training still includes opportunities to rev the aerobic engine so that it doesn't forget how to throttle.  That even includes easy (and potentially recovery) days.  

These bursts of speed will usually come in snack-size bites that don't generally fatigue the body but do awaken the nervous system and strengthen muscles and connective tissues.  These will typically take place either toward the final minutes of a run or following it.  This is to remind runners that they can go their fastest at the end.

Our Monday runs will generally take place in parks that have moderate hills.  This allows us to follow up the runs with short hill sprints.  These are 8 to 10-second reps of max effort up a fairly steep incline with full recovery between.  Running uphill encourages proper form by making it difficult to overstride and necessitating knee lift.  The greater muscular demand leads to improved strength, while the incline actually decreases impact force on bones and joints.  These sprints also increase muscle stiffness, turning your legs into better springs leading into Tuesday's aerobic workout.

Our Wednesday recovery runs will take place at school and will generally be followed by barefoot strides.  As the name suggests, these are roughly 100m accelerations done without shoes or socks.  These strides will strengthen the foot, ankle, and lower leg.  They also encourage proper foot strike and cadence while developing greater proprioception.

Our Thursday trail runs will be followed by what I'll call levee strides.  These will be 20-second repeats across the levee at the lake.  These will follow a progression throughout the summer, starting at 5k effort before whittling down to 800m pace through the weeks.  This helps runners grow accustomed to the gear they'll need to access in the closing stretch of a race well before it's needed.

Finally, for those who run on Saturday, they may repeat this progression of strides.  They may also weave some 20-second strides at 5k effort into the last 10-15 minutes of their run.  This will help promote better form and remind runners they have the ability to go fast toward the end of a run.  

Among proponents of barefoot strides is Nick Symmonds, US Olympian in the 800m.

The Fast Facts
​on Slow Runs

I hope this post has brought a deeper understanding of the role easy running plays in our training and gives a general form to how Monday, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays will look.  To summarize:

• Recovery runs might be a misnomer.  They may not do much to promote recovery, but they do take advantage of additional opportunities to build fitness without compromising harder workouts.
• Easy runs add to overall volume, increasing stamina and efficiency without overloading the body.
• To be effective easy running must take place at a pace significantly slower than race effort, often 2-3 minutes slower per mile. 
• Even easy days should include speed-snacks of various sprints and strides to build strength and muscle recruitment.

Next week we will look at the various aerobic workouts that will show up this summer in our training's hard days!