Run Slower to Race Faster

When I was in college, every distance run was calculated at a seven  minute per mile pace.  We ran this pace, and probably much faster, on our long runs, easy days, and maintenance runs.  It was “distance run pace.”  At the time, it wasn’t particularly challenging and even on days when many of us felt fatigued from a race or workout, we kept it up.

Is there anything wrong with this?  Absolutely.  See, that 7 minute/mile pace was a moderate effort for the majority of the guys on our team.  Since our easy days were generally around 5-6 miles, we may have been cutting back on volume but we were not cutting back on intensity.  That moderate effort was still there – in fact, many times our short runs were fast simply because we knew we weren’t running that long.

I want to point to a much better article than this one (I’m honest to a fault): http://www.letsrun.com/2006/collegesuck.php.  LetsRun.com cofounder Weldon Johnson outlines what mistakes he made in college and how his view of training has changed over the years.  The major highlights include run slower on easy runs, stop running workouts so “hard,” be consistent, believe in yourself, and take a long-term view of your running career.

The easy things you can implement in your training to reduce unneeded stress, boost recovery power, and make you faster come race day are oftentimes the same things you consider counterproductive to being fast.  if your normal easy day is 5 miles at 7:30/mile, are you really going to lose fitness if you run 4 miles at 8:00/mile when you are fatigued?  No way!  Reducing effort on low priority workouts makes you more capable of handling more volume overall and giving your high priority workouts more attention.

Just follow the Kenyan mantra of running “easy runs easier, fast runs faster.”  Having a coach helps reign you in on easy days by emphasizing its importance.  Consider signing up today.