The #1 Easy Pace Mistake That Wrecks Your Fall Marathon Training

Coach Jeff [00:00:00]: A study of 119,000 marathon runners found the fastest finishers weren't training harder. They were running easier more often. And the runners who ignored that spent 16 weeks training for a race they'd already lost.

Coach Sara [00:00:14]: So if you're lacing up for a fall marathon and your base building just started or is about to start, this episode is for you. We're gonna talk about what easy pace actually means, like with numbers, why slowing down builds a bigger engine than speeding up, and the data from over 119,000 runners that shows exactly how the fastest marathoners distribute their training. Hello, runners, and welcome to the Run to the Top podcast, where our goal is making you a better runner with each and every episode. I'm your host, Sara, and today I'm joined by the founder of RunnersConnect, Coach Jeff Gaudette.

Coach Jeff [00:00:56]: Hey, Sara. Good to be here.

Coach Sara [00:00:58]: So how's your summer going? I feel like this is, like, the calm before the storm for you, right? All the spring marathon groups just wrapped up, and now you've got all the fall signups comin' in.

Coach Jeff [00:01:12]: Yeah. It's, I mean, it's a weird transition period. We're still doing post-race debriefs with the spring group. Boston was a couple months ago now, which is wild. And then at the same time, I'm onboarding all the fall marathon runners. And it's funny, because there's this thing that happens every single time a new athlete comes into the program. I pull up their training log from whatever they've been doing on their own, and the first thing I look at, every time, is their easy-day pace. And I'd say... I don't know. Eight outta ten, it's too fast.

Coach Sara [00:01:51]: Eight out of ten. Really?

Coach Jeff [00:01:53]: At least. And it's, like, the single most common adjustment I make. Before I change their mileage, before I look at their workout structure, before any of that. I slow down their easy days. Because everything else kinda depends on getting that right first.

Coach Sara [00:02:10]: Yeah. I'm seeing the same thing with my group right now. I've got 12 women I'm coaching through summer base building for fall marathons, and, like, the energy is so high right now. Everyone's excited, they just registered, they wanna go. And I keep having to be like, hey, slow down. This is base building. We're building the foundation, not the house.

Coach Jeff [00:02:34]: That's a great way to put it. And that excitement is actually part of the problem. Because when you're motivated and you feel good, easy pace feels too easy. It feels like you're wasting time.

Coach Sara [00:02:48]: Totally. Okay, so that's actually a perfect setup for today. Let's get into it.

Coach Jeff [00:02:53]: Yeah. So let me start with why the timing matters. If you're listening to this in late June, and you just kicked off a fall marathon training cycle, or you're about to, this is the window where easy pace gets locked in. Because whatever effort you default to on your easy days in the first 2 or 3 weeks, that becomes your normal. Your body calibrates to it. Your watch tracks it. And now you've got a baseline that's wrong, and you don't even know it's wrong because it feels comfortable.

Coach Sara [00:03:29]: And the thing that's tricky is, like, in week 1, running at 78 or 80 percent max heart rate does feel comfortable. Because you're fresh. You haven't accumulated any fatigue yet. So it's, like... how would you even know it's too fast at that point?

Coach Jeff [00:03:47]: That's exactly the trap. It feels fine in week 1. And then by week 6, week 8, you're chronically tired and you're like, what happened? And the answer is, nothing happened. You were always running too fast on easy days. You just didn't feel it when you were rested.

Coach Sara [00:04:06]: So then let's define it. Because I think, like... I talk to runners all the time who think they know what easy pace is, and then when you actually look at the numbers, they're way off. What does easy pace actually mean?

Coach Jeff [00:04:22]: Okay. So the number is 55 to 75 percent of your current 5K pace. Or if you're going by heart rate, 60 to 70 percent of your max heart rate. And I know those numbers sound slow when you first hear them. So let me put it in real terms. If you run a 24-minute 5K, that's about a 7:43 per mile pace. Your easy range should be somewhere around 9:00 to 10:15 per mile. That's 2 to 3 minutes per mile slower than your 5K race pace.

Coach Sara [00:04:57]: Two to three minutes slower. Yeah, I think that's where people's brains break a little bit. Because that feels like you're barely moving.

Coach Jeff [00:05:06]: It does. And that's actually, like, the correct feeling. If your easy run feels like training, it's too fast. That's the rule I use with my runners. Easy running should feel like you could run forever. RPE of 1 to 3 on a 10-point scale. You should be able to speak in full sentences without pausing to breathe between phrases. If you're gasping between sentences, you've drifted into the gray zone.

Coach Sara [00:05:34]: So okay, wait. So that's, like, three different ways to check it. Heart rate, the talk test, and pace. Do you use all three? Or...

Coach Jeff [00:05:44]: Yeah. So this is what we call the three-test diagnostic at RunnersConnect. Heart rate under 75 percent of max, ideally 60 to 70. Talk test, full sentences, no gasping. And pace check, 2 to 3 minutes per mile slower than current 5K race pace. And ideally, all three line up. If your pace says easy but your heart rate is in the high 70s, you're not easy. If your heart rate says easy but you can't finish a sentence, something's off. You want all three to agree.

Coach Sara [00:06:18]: Hmm. That makes sense. And I think the talk test is the one that, like... I don't know. My runners always underestimate how much they should be able to talk. They think breathing a little heavy is fine. And it's like, no. You should be able to tell me a story. Like, an actual story. Not just a sentence.

Coach Jeff [00:06:41]: Right. And, you know, the psychological part of this is real. Easy pace doesn't feel productive. And that's the whole issue. You finish an easy run and you feel like you didn't do anything. And for runners who are goal-oriented and type A, which is, like, a lot of our audience, that feeling is really uncomfortable.

Coach Sara [00:07:03]: Oh, a hundred percent. I feel that myself. Like, even now, I'm doing 40 to 45 miles a week in base building, and some days my easy runs are... I mean, they're slow. And there's always this little voice that's like, this can't be doing anything. But I know it is. It's just hard to feel it in the moment.

Coach Jeff [00:07:27]: Exactly. And that gap between how it feels and what it's actually doing inside your body is the whole problem. Because what easy running is doing is actually really important. So let me walk through the physiology.

Coach Sara [00:07:41]: Yeah. Let's do it.

Coach Jeff [00:07:42]: Okay. So there are four specific adaptations that peak at easy intensity. And I mean peak. They happen best in this zone, and they drop off when you go harder. First is capillary development. Your body builds new capillaries around your muscle fibers, and that process peaks at about 60 to 75 percent of 5K pace. More capillaries means faster oxygen delivery to the working muscles. Second is mitochondrial density. And this one is huge. The research from Holloszy in 1967, and then Dudley in the early 80s, showed that mitochondrial development peaks at 50 to 75 percent of VO2 max, sustained for 90 minutes or more. Mitochondria are the engines inside your muscle cells that convert fuel to energy. More of them means more aerobic power. And the key word there is sustained. You need time at this intensity. A shorter run triggers some of it. But the real response kicks in at 90 minutes or more.

Coach Sara [00:08:45]: So it's a time thing. Like, the longer you're in the zone, the more you get.

Coach Jeff [00:08:51]: Exactly. And that's the third point I was gonna make anyway. These adaptations respond to time at the right intensity. Speed is irrelevant. A runner with a 35-minute 5K who runs 14-minute miles on their easy day gets the same aerobic stimulus as a runner with a 20-minute 5K running 8:30 miles easy. Same physiological response. Faster easy pace just costs you more recovery without any extra benefit.

Coach Sara [00:09:18]: That's so counterintuitive, though. Because every instinct says faster equals more stimulus.

Coach Jeff [00:09:22]: Yeah. And it does, for workouts. For intervals, for tempo runs, speed matters. But for easy running, the stimulus is about keeping your body in that specific physiological window for a long time. Going faster just pushes you outta the window.

Coach Sara [00:09:38]: Okay so wait, I wanna make sure I'm hearin' that right. You're saying a slower runner at 14-minute pace is getting the same benefit as a faster runner at 8:30?

Coach Jeff [00:09:50]: Same aerobic adaptations. Because the stimulus is percentage of their own capacity. And so the third adaptation is Type I fiber stimulation. Those are your slow-twitch, fatigue-resistant fibers. The ones that carry you through a marathon. They peak at 63 to 77 percent of VO2 max. And the fourth is myoglobin content. Myoglobin shuttles oxygen from the cell membrane to the mitochondria. More myoglobin means more efficient oxygen use inside the muscle. And all four of these adaptations happen best in the easy zone.

Coach Sara [00:10:23]: So you're basically building the whole aerobic engine at easy pace. Like, capillaries for delivery, mitochondria for processing, the right muscle fibers, and the oxygen shuttle system.

Coach Jeff [00:10:33]: Yeah. And the analogy I use with my runners is, easy running is compound interest. You're making small deposits every day. You don't see the return on any single easy run. You see it at week 12 when your aerobic fitness has quietly built this massive base underneath you.

Coach Sara [00:10:52]: That's... yeah. That's a really good way to think about it. 'Cause I think runners want the payoff today. They wanna feel like they earned something. And it's, like... I had a conversation with one of my athletes last week. She texted me after an easy run and said, I don't feel like I did anything today. And I was like, that's perfect. That means you nailed it.

Coach Jeff [00:11:19]: That's the exact right response. And honestly, if more runners had that mindset, like, if the goal of an easy day was to feel like you didn't train, we'd see way fewer overuse injuries and way more PRs. But it takes a lot of trust to run that slow on purpose.

Coach Sara [00:11:39]: It really does. Especially when you're scrollin' Strava and everybody else's easy pace is faster than yours.

Coach Jeff [00:11:45]: Right. And the hard runs give you that feeling. That's what tempo runs and intervals are for. They feel hard. They feel productive. Easy running is the quiet work that makes the hard runs possible.

Coach Sara [00:11:59]: Okay. So now I wanna talk about what happens when you get this wrong. Because I think the benefits of easy running are, like, convincing. But the costs of running easy days too fast, I don't think people fully appreciate how much damage that does.

Coach Jeff [00:12:17]: Yeah. And the costs compound, which is what makes them so dangerous. So there's five specific things that happen. Number one, the aerobic adaptations I just described, they don't happen. Above about 75 percent of 5K pace, capillary development, mitochondrial density, Type I fiber stimulation, they all drop off sharply. So you think you're getting credit for an easy run. Physiologically, you're getting almost none of the benefit.

Coach Sara [00:12:44]: That's the part that really gets me. 'Cause you're doin' the miles. You're puttin' in the time. But your body isn't getting what it's supposed to get from those miles.

Coach Jeff [00:12:56]: Exactly. Cost number two. Your next hard workout gets compromised. And this is the one that, you know, I learned the hard way. So when I was in high school, I used to race my easy days. I mean, my easy pace was like 6:45 per mile. And my workout pace was maybe 6:30. So the gap between easy and hard was basically nothing. And I thought I was tough. I thought that was what good training looked like. Then I turned pro. And my workout pace dropped to, like, 5:00 per mile. And my easy days were 8:30 or slower. Sometimes 9:00. And the gap between easy and hard grew enormously. And that's when my racing got dramatically better.

Coach Sara [00:13:44]: Hold on. So as a pro, you were running... 8:30 easy and 5:00 for workouts? That's a 3-and-a-half-minute gap.

Coach Jeff [00:13:51]: Yeah. And in high school, that gap was like 15 seconds. And so what happens is, easy days exist to promote circulation and clear the micro-tears from your last hard session. Run them too fast and you're adding new damage on top of damage that hasn't healed yet. And then you show up to your next workout already compromised.

Coach Sara [00:14:14]: And you don't even realize it because you just think the workout was hard. You don't connect it back to the easy day.

Coach Jeff [00:14:23]: Right. You think, oh, that tempo run was just a tough day. And the truth is, you were set up to fail before you even started the warmup.

Coach Sara [00:14:34]: Yeah. Okay. What's number three?

Coach Jeff [00:14:36]: Injury risk. And this one is insidious because of how delayed it is. There's a quote I come back to a lot, which is, you don't run slightly too fast one day and then immediately get hurt. The stress and fatigue compounds, so it's difficult to attribute to any one run. And that's exactly the problem. You run your easy days at, like, 80 percent of max HR instead of 65, and nothing bad happens on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or that whole week. But by week 5 or 6, you've got this IT band thing, or a stress reaction, and you're like, where did this come from? It came from easy days that were too fast. You just couldn't see the connection because the timeline is so long. And RC's data on this is actually really clear. Running 80 percent of your volume at easy effort led to 23 percent faster race times and lower injury rates.

Coach Sara [00:15:38]: Twenty-three percent faster. That's a big number. Like, that's not marginal.

Coach Jeff [00:15:42]: No. And you get the performance benefit and the injury protection at the same time. They're the same intervention. Slow down your easy days.

Coach Sara [00:15:51]: That's... I mean, when you say it like that, it sounds so simple. Slow down and you get faster and you get hurt less.

Coach Jeff [00:16:00]: It is simple. The execution is the hard part. Because your ego doesn't want you to slow down. Your running buddies don't want you to slow down. Strava doesn't want you to slow down. Everything in the running culture pushes you to go faster on every run. And the research says the opposite.

Coach Sara [00:16:21]: Okay so what's four?

Coach Jeff [00:16:22]: Weekly volume gets capped. And this is the one that's really devastating during base building, because volume is the whole point of this phase. When your easy pace is too fast, every mile costs more recovery. So you hit your fatigue ceiling earlier in the week. I had a masters runner, this was maybe a year and a half ago, who was running his easy days at 7:30 per mile. His easy pace should've been around 9:00. And he could not get above 35 miles a week. Every time he tried to bump to 40, he'd break down. Knee pain, calf tightness, just general fatigue. And when we slowed his easy days to 9:00, he was at 45 miles a week within a month. Same runner. Same schedule. Same body. He just reduced the per-mile cost. That was a big reason he couldn't get his mileage up.

Coach Sara [00:17:20]: Oh wow. So just by... just slowing down the easy runs, he gained 10 miles a week? That's... yeah. That's a pretty dramatic example.

Coach Jeff [00:17:29]: And it makes sense when you think about it. If every easy mile is costing you, like, 80 percent of what a workout mile costs, your weekly budget runs out fast. Drop that cost to 40 or 50 percent, and suddenly you can afford more miles.

Coach Sara [00:17:47]: Okay. And five?

Coach Jeff [00:17:48]: The plateau trap. Which is really just all four of those things compounding at the same time. You've got no aerobic gain from easy days, compromised hard workouts, capped volume, and chronic low-grade fatigue. And you string that together for 12 or 16 weeks, and you've got a runner who trained consistently, did everything on the schedule, and ran the same time or slower than their last race. And they're devastated. They did the work. They just did it at the wrong intensity. Slowing easy days is frequently the single change that breaks through a plateau like that.

Coach Sara [00:18:27]: Hmm. That's... I mean, that's a really frustrating scenario. Because the runner feels like they did everything right.

Coach Jeff [00:18:34]: They did do a lot of things right. They were consistent. They showed up. They just had the intensity dial slightly off on 80 percent of their runs.

Coach Sara [00:18:45]: Okay. So I wanna talk about the big data point. Because I think this is, like... when I first saw this study, it kinda changed how I thought about training distribution. Tell me about the Strava data.

Coach Jeff [00:18:59]: Yeah. So there's a study published in 2024 in Sports Medicine that analyzed 119,452 Strava marathon runners. And what they found is really clear. The sub-3-hour finishers spent about 80 percent of their training volume in Zone 1, which is easy. The 4-hour-plus finishers spent only 50 to 60 percent in Zone 1. And so the fastest runners in the dataset weren't training harder. They were running easier more often.

Coach Sara [00:19:27]: A hundred and nineteen thousand runners. I mean, that's a massive sample. And the pattern is... I mean, it's pretty stark. Eighty percent versus fifty to sixty.

Coach Jeff [00:19:37]: Yeah. And it lines up with the polarized training model, which is what a lotta the research over the past decade has converged on. About 80 percent of your volume should be easy. Fifteen to twenty percent should be hard, meaning tempo, intervals, race pace work. And almost nothing in between. That middle zone, 75 to 85 percent of max heart rate, that's where the junk miles live.

Coach Sara [00:20:04]: And I think, like... this is a point I have to make with my runners all the time. Junk miles are the moderate runs. The gray zone runs. Junk miles are not easy runs. 'Cause I think there's this whole misunderstanding where people hear junk miles and they think, oh, my easy runs are junk. And that's backwards.

Coach Jeff [00:20:27]: Yeah. And that misunderstanding actually comes from the original context. The term junk miles, it gets attributed to Renato Canova. And he was coaching elite runners. And when he talked about junk miles, he was talking about moderate-intensity runs that were too easy to produce an elite training stimulus and too hard to serve as recovery. He was never talking about easy running. But the phrase got pulled outta context and applied to recreational runners, and now people think that running slow is wasted time. Which is the exact opposite of what the data shows.

Coach Sara [00:21:05]: So if you're hearing this and you're starting a fall marathon cycle and you're spending only 50 or 60 percent of your volume at true easy effort...

Coach Jeff [00:21:15]: Then you're training like a 4-hour marathoner. Regardless of what your goal time is. Because the distribution pattern is what separates faster runners from slower runners. Your goal time on the entry form doesn't matter if your training distribution looks like a 4:00 finisher.

Coach Sara [00:21:32]: Wow. Okay. That's a pretty blunt way to put it.

Coach Jeff [00:21:36]: I think it needs to be blunt. Because the fix is simple. The hard part is the ego adjustment.

Coach Sara [00:21:43]: Yeah. So let's talk about the fix. Because I think if somebody's listening to this right now and they're like, okay, I think I've been running my easy days too fast, what do they do this week?

Coach Jeff [00:21:57]: Okay. Four steps. Step 1, know your current 5K fitness. You need a recent data point. If you haven't raced a 5K recently, go run a solo time trial this week. Doesn't have to be perfect. Just a hard, honest effort so you have a number to work from. Step 2, calculate your easy range. Take that 5K pace and add 2 to 3 minutes per mile. Or use 55 to 75 percent of 5K pace. For most people, it's gonna be slower than they expect. Step 3, and this is the one that requires the most discipline, run by effort for the first 2 weeks. Leave the watch at home. Or at least cover the screen. Let your body find the effort that feels genuinely easy. And accept that easy pace varies day to day. It's slower when it's hot out. It's slower when you didn't sleep well. It's slower on hilly routes. That's normal. That's your body telling you the truth.

Coach Sara [00:23:02]: I love that. Your body telling you the truth. Because I think the watch lies in a way. Not literally, but it gives you this fixed number and then you chase it. And some days that number is appropriate, and some days it's too fast for where your body actually is.

Coach Jeff [00:23:22]: Exactly. And then step 4, go look at your training log from the past few weeks. Calculate what percentage of your weekly volume was truly easy. Below 75 percent max heart rate. And if that number is 50 to 60 percent, you've found the problem. The target is 75 to 80 percent of your weekly miles at easy effort.

Coach Sara [00:23:45]: Okay. And I think that's a concrete thing people can do tonight. Like, open Garmin Connect, look at the heart rate data, and just count. How many of my miles were actually in Zone 1?

Coach Jeff [00:23:59]: Yeah. And a lotta runners are gonna be surprised. Because they think they're runnin' easy, but when they look at the data, their heart rate's been in Zone 3 the whole time.

Coach Sara [00:24:11]: So okay, I wanna do the scenario you set up. A runner comes to you mid-July. They're 12 weeks out from their fall marathon. They've been base building for 3 weeks and they're already beat up. Legs are heavy, paces are slippin', motivation is dipping. They show you their training log and every single run, including the easy days, is within 60 seconds of their marathon goal pace. What do you tell them?

Coach Jeff [00:24:40]: I tell them the good news is I know exactly what's wrong. And the fix doesn't require running more or training harder. It requires running easier. I'd look at their 5K pace, or their recent race data, and calculate where their easy pace should actually be. And almost always, they need to slow down by at least a minute, usually closer to 2 minutes per mile. And then I'd tell them, for the next 2 weeks, don't change your mileage. Don't change your workout schedule. Just slow down the easy days. Get your heart rate into the 60 to 70 percent range. And watch what happens. Because within 7 to 10 days, the fatigue is gonna start clearing. The legs are gonna feel fresher. The hard workouts are gonna feel achievable again. And they're gonna realize they weren't overtrained. They were under-recovered.

Coach Sara [00:25:36]: Under-recovered. That's... yeah, that's a really important distinction. They didn't do too much. They just didn't recover enough between the things they did.

Coach Jeff [00:25:45]: And the recovery was compromised because the easy days weren't actually easy. That's the whole thing. It always comes back to easy pace.

Coach Sara [00:25:54]: Okay, so before we wrap up, I have a runner situation I wanna run by you, and it's kinda perfect for this episode. So this is Linda. She's 47. She's one of my masters women. And she's training for her third marathon this fall. Her goal is to break 4 hours. Her PR is a 4:07. And she's base building right now, running 35 miles a week, 5 days a week.

Coach Jeff [00:26:22]: Okay.

Coach Sara [00:26:22]: So the issue is her easy-day pace. She's been running her easy days at 9:15 to 9:30 per mile. And her reasoning is, her marathon goal pace is 9:09, so she wants to, quote, teach her body that pace. She thinks the closer she runs to goal pace every day, the better prepared she'll be. And her Garmin is showing her easy runs in Zone 3.

Coach Jeff [00:26:48]: Yeah. So this is... I mean, this is the exact pattern we've been talking about. She's running 30 to 40 seconds slower than marathon pace on her easy days. That's not easy. That's moderate. She's living in the gray zone.

Coach Sara [00:27:04]: And it's so common with my runners. Like, they genuinely believe that running closer to goal pace every day makes them more prepared. And I get the logic. It makes intuitive sense. But the physiology doesn't work that way.

Coach Jeff [00:27:19]: No. And so here's what I'd do with Linda. Based on a 4:07 marathon, her approximate 5K fitness is somewhere around 8:15 per mile pace. So her easy range should be about 10:30 to 11:00 per mile. That's 2 to 3 minutes slower than her 5K pace. And her heart rate should be 60 to 70 percent of max. Not Zone 3.

Coach Sara [00:27:43]: But here's the thing I know she'd say. She'd say, if my goal is 9:09 per mile, won't running 10:30 or 11:00 feel like I'm goin' backward? Like, how is running a minute and a half slower than goal pace gonna help me run goal pace in a race?

Coach Jeff [00:28:02]: And that's the question, right? And the answer is, your easy runs don't teach your body marathon pace. Your workouts and your long run progressions do that. Your easy runs build the engine that makes marathon pace sustainable. And so if Linda's running 9:15 on her easy days, she's not teaching her body marathon pace. She's just accumulating fatigue that's going to compromise the workouts that do teach marathon pace.

Coach Sara [00:28:30]: So you wouldn't change her mileage or her workout structure?

Coach Jeff [00:28:34]: No. The first move is always the easy-pace fix. Because once she's actually recovering on her easy days, everything else tends to fall into place. The chronic fatigue clears. The workouts feel better. She might even find she can add a few more miles per week because the per-mile cost went down. Same thing that happened with that masters runner I mentioned earlier. You just reduce the load on the easy days, and the system has room to adapt.

Coach Sara [00:29:05]: I think the hard part with Linda is gonna be convincing her that slower is actually doing something. Because she's very goal-oriented. Very numbers-driven. She's got the 4-hour goal written on a sticky note on her bathroom mirror.

Coach Jeff [00:29:20]: Yeah. And I get that. And the thing I'd tell her is, you're not giving up on 4 hours by slowing your easy days. You're making 4 hours more likely. Because right now, she's running her easy days in Zone 3, which means she's never fully recovering between workouts. And the workouts are the sessions that actually build race-specific fitness. So by running easier on easy days, she's gonna hit her workout paces more consistently. Her long runs are gonna feel more controlled. And by week 10 or 12, she's gonna be in a much better position than if she kept grinding 9:15 every day.

Coach Sara [00:30:02]: Yeah. I think that framing helps. The easy runs don't build the race fitness directly. They protect the workouts that do. Got it. I'm gonna have this exact conversation with Linda this week.

Coach Jeff [00:30:15]: I bet she'll feel the difference within a week. Seriously. Once the fatigue starts clearing, it's like a fog lifts.

Coach Sara [00:30:23]: And the takeaway for anyone in a similar spot is, look at the gap between your easy pace and your goal marathon pace. If that gap is less than a minute, your easy days aren't easy. You want that gap to be at least 2 minutes per mile. And check your heart rate. If your easy runs are showing up in Zone 3, slow down.

Coach Jeff [00:30:49]: Yeah. Zone 3 on an easy day means your easy days aren't easy. Regardless of what the pace reads. The heart rate is the honest signal.

Coach Sara [00:30:59]: Okay, so we have our What I Got Wrong segment. And this one's from you, Jeff. What's your wrong belief this week?

Coach Jeff [00:31:07]: Yeah. So this is one I held for a long time. I used to believe that easy-day pace should get faster as your fitness improved. Like, I tracked my easy-pace trends. If my easy pace dropped from 8:30 to 8:15 over a training cycle, I took that as a sign that my aerobic system was developing. I used it as a fitness indicator. And I'm not the only one. A lotta coaches and runners do this.

Coach Sara [00:31:37]: Oh yeah. I mean, I think... I think that's pretty standard, right? Like, your easy pace is gettin' faster, you must be getting fitter. It makes sense on the surface.

Coach Jeff [00:31:49]: It does. And it's wrong. Or at least, it's misleading. Because what I noticed over years of coaching and my own training is that my best racing periods didn't correlate with my fastest easy paces. They correlated with my slowest easy paces and my fastest hard paces. The gap between easy and hard was the signal. The bigger the gap, the better I was racing. And when that gap shrank, when my easy days crept up closer to my workout paces, that's when I'd plateau or underperform.

Coach Sara [00:32:23]: Huh. So the metric that matters isn't the easy pace itself. It's the spread.

Coach Jeff [00:32:28]: The spread. Yeah. And then on the coaching side, we looked at RC's data on coached athletes, and easy-day pace turned out to be a vanity metric. It just doesn't predict race performance. The metrics that actually predict how someone's gonna race are workout pace progression, long run quality, and recovery speed between hard sessions. Easy-day pace is noise. And so now I tell my runners, ignore your easy-pace trends entirely. Don't even look at them. If your easy pace is getting faster and you're not deliberately trying to run faster, that's actually a yellow flag. It might mean you're running too hard on easy days.

Coach Sara [00:33:10]: Okay, I gotta be honest. I still catch myself checkin' my easy pace on Strava. Like, every time I upload a run, I look at it. And if it's slower than last week, there's this little voice in my head that goes, ugh. Even though I know it doesn't matter. Do you think Strava and GPS watches have made this worse?

Coach Jeff [00:33:34]: A hundred percent. Because Strava and GPS watches give you this constant stream of data that rewards speed. Everything on Strava is about pace and splits and PRs. There's no badge for running the perfect easy effort. There's no achievement for keeping your heart rate at 65 percent of max. And so the incentive structure is completely backwards for easy running. The technology is amazing for tracking workouts and races. For easy days, it's actively counterproductive.

Coach Sara [00:34:04]: And I think there's a social pressure thing too. Like, I'll be totally honest. I've had runs where I slowed down 'cause I saw someone I knew on the trail, and then I looked at my Strava after and was like, ugh, that brought my average pace up. And I caught myself being annoyed about... about running easier. Which is exactly the problem.

Coach Jeff [00:34:29]: Yeah. And that's the ego piece. Like, we've all been there. And I think the shift that helps is to stop thinking about easy pace as a performance metric and start thinking about it as a recovery tool. You wouldn't judge the quality of your sleep by how fast your heart rate was. Same idea. Your easy run is a recovery session. Judge it by how recovered you feel the next day.

Coach Sara [00:34:57]: Yeah. I've started telling my athletes, if you wanna run easy by feel, either leave the watch at home or set it to show time of day only. Don't show pace. Don't show heart rate. Just run.

Coach Jeff [00:35:11]: That's great advice. And I think that's a good note to end on, actually. The technology is a tool. Use it for workouts, use it for races. On easy days, trust yourself.

Coach Sara [00:35:23]: Yeah. I love that. Okay, Jeff, thank you. This was a really important one, especially right now. If you're starting a fall marathon cycle, the single most impactful thing you can do this week is look at your easy-day pace, check it against the numbers we talked about, and be honest about whether it's actually easy. Next week, we're gonna talk about heat training, and specifically how running in summer heat actually makes you faster in the fall. So if you're cursing the humidity on your morning runs, there's a silver lining, and we're gonna explain exactly what's happening. If this episode helped you, share it with a running buddy who you know is running their easy days too fast. We all have one. I'll see you next week.