Your Slow is Too Fast, and Your Fast is Too Slow
When I started training for my 10km race almost a year ago, I decided to add some speed sessions to my training and really start to vary my sessions. This included long, slow distance (LSD), easy, tempo, interval, and recovery runs. I had dabbled in these different runs a bit when I ran cross country in high school, but last year it took a little bit of time to get a handle on them and truly appreciate their purpose. If you don’t, you end up in this weird middle ground where every run is tiring without the intended benefits.
Not every run you do as part of your running training has the same purpose. Easy and LSD runs are done at a lower intensity in order to help develop your aerobic base, accumulate mileage, and increase your tolerance to running, all while allowing you to recover relatively easily. Tempo runs are generally shorter but require a sustained higher effort, meant to develop your ability to maintain a faster pace for longer. Intervals are higher intensity, used for developing speed and for repeatedly producing high efforts. Recovery runs are your slowest, meant to be very low intensity while keeping you moving (I find recovery runs to be a misnomer, because anytime you are running, regardless of the pace, you are still accumulating effort, load, and mileage. However, this is a common term and so we’ll save that discussion for another day).
When we don’t follow these training zones, we end up in this grey zone. Easy runs that are done too quickly, and fast runs that aren’t fast enough put us in this middle effort area that misses the point of these different runs. If your easy runs end up being moderately hard, you’re no longer getting the same aerobic-endurance stimulus, and you’re accumulating greater fatigue than intended without the ability to increase distance. If all of your fast runs are only moderately hard, you’re not getting the stimulus you’re looking for from your faster training either. Essentially, all of your runs end up looking around the same pace, which defeats the purpose of the different workouts.
If you’re running purely for enjoyment or general fitness, you don’t necessarily need to worry about training zones or carefully structuring every run. But even then, there’s still a useful lesson here: not every run needs to be hard to be worthwhile. Easy running still provides a training stimulus and health benefits, while being less fatiguing to help you stay active. Sometimes the best thing you can do is slow down and enjoy the miles.
If your slow is too fast and your fast is too slow, you may need to check the ego when it’s time to go slow, and turn it up a gear when it’s time to go fast. Your fast should be fast enough to provide the stimulus you’re looking for. Your slow should be slow enough to build your aerobic base and let you recover. Not every run needs to be hard to be productive.
