Before I fell for running, I thought the hardest thing about the sport was the fast stuff: the speedwork, the sprints, and the intervals.
And I do find that running fast—making my lungs beg for air, feeling my heart pounding all the way in my ears, and pushing my legs to their limits—is indeed hard. Some days nearly impossible. But no: Turns out, the hardest thing about running is keeping the easy miles easy.
The irony is not lost on me that, somehow, breathing evenly enough to be able to talk while running, keeping my heartbeat under control, and moving my legs only to the point where they feel comfortable with the effort can be considered a challenge at all. But ever since I started running consistently three years ago (which coincides with my start date at Runner’s World and definitely not by coincidence), keeping it slow—all the while knowing I could be running so much faster—makes me feel like I’m not trying hard enough.
Why am I even talking about this, you ask? Some 80 percent of your weekly mileage should be at an easy pace (including your long run), no matter the type of training, because adaptations in the body happen during easy efforts. These miles are aerobic, meaning they help increase capillary densities, which are tiny blood vessels that deliver oxygen and nutrients to muscle cells and, in turn, improve aerobic capacity, the amount of oxygen your body can use while running. Moreover, it teaches your body to use fat for fuel and conserve glycogen (the stored form of glucose that comes from carbohydrates).
Ways to Make Running This Winter More Enjoyable carbohydrates for fuel. The faster you run, the higher the percentage of carbohydrates and the lower the percentage of fat your body uses. A slower pace means using a higher percentage of stored fat and a lower percentage of carbohydrates. That’s the desired outcome, because when you burn mostly fat, your blood sugar and energy level The 2025 Marathon and Half Marathon Calendar.
Despite being equipped with all this information, I still feel silly running slower than I know I’m capable of. Part of me can’t help but compete with my own previous efforts. Part of me has internalized that if I’m not pushing myself hard enough to the point when I’m gasping for air at the end of a workout, I’m regressing—although I know I’m not.
This is not to imply I’m a fast runner—far from it. It’s just that the pace I maintain during the majority of my runs is too fast for my current fitness. I run by feel and can’t even guess what my pace is most of the time, which is dictated by my anxiety some days, and by how tired my legs are on others. I rarely sign up for races, and when I do, I usually use a training plan that helps me safely increase my mileage, with no time goal in mind.
But that changed when I got an entry to the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run in Washington, D.C., this spring. Having a point of reference from my previous effort at this distance at the 2023 Broad Street Run 10-Miler in Philadelphia, I wanted to beat my previous time. I committed to Coach Jess Movold’s eight-week “Ways to Make Running This Winter More Enjoyable” Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Runner’s World. To ensure I didn’t get injured while working toward intentionally increasing my speed and boosting my mileage volume, I vowed to follow the plan to a tee.
The plan prescribed a quality speed session every Tuesday, preceded and followed by easy days. Therefore my Monday session had to be truly easy in order for me to feel ready for the next day. On the very first Monday of training, I put on my laziest running shoes—a pair I consider too cushioned and sluggish to allow me to go fast even when I want to—while repeating to myself the saying that “a 12-minute mile is just as far as a 6-minute mile,” and I took to the trail. I kept an eye on my watch, stay more balanced heartbeat, all the while paying attention to my breathing to ensure it wasn’t labored. After a few minutes of slamming the brakes and shortening my stride, I locked in cruise control and slowly but surely jogged the prescribed six miles.
Needless to say, the run felt amazing. I reached home without panting, nearly sad it was over, already looking forward to the 800-meter repeats the next day.
It’s the most curious thing because a training plan is really just a piece of paper. But the piece of paper provided the accountability I needed and I know I thrive on. It gave me permission to slow down, which I wasn’t able to offer myself. And over the course of the training plan, it proved to me that, no, I wasn’t regressing while running easy, but actually working toward becoming a faster runner: The harder efforts started feeling easier, long runs more effortless despite the growing mileage. And if I gained some new PRs in the process, it was a welcome reward for going hard on the easy miles. Point taken.
Sure, a training plan is just a piece of paper, but the piece of paper is the coach, and when Coach says easy, we go easy.
A Part of Hearst Digital Media Runner’s World, Bicycling, and Popular Mechanics since August 2021. When she doesn’t edit, she writes; when she doesn’t write, she reads or translates. In whatever time she has left, you can find her outside running, riding, or roller-skating to the beat of one of the many audiobooks on her TBL list.
