Running Injury Prevention: Slowing Down

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Earlier I wrote about things I've been doing to reduce my risk of running injury, but I wanted to spend a little more time on running easy. Since restarting my running life in 2009 and reading many books and articles on training, I've known that easy runs are supposed to be just that — easy. I hadn't, however, realized how easy. 

I was listening to a podcast that said you should be doing your easy runs 90 - 120 seconds slower than your marathon pace. I don't think I've ever done my easy runs that slowly. I tried running that pace for a while, but it felt really slow. There are other formulas for easy runs, so I checked out McMillan's running calculator and Jack Daniels' running calculator, both of which I've used in the past, to get get a range of paces for easy runs. McMillan's fast end was a little fast, so I decided to go with the Jack Daniels' range of paces when 90 seconds slower than my marathon pace is feeling a little too slow.

Besides using pace, I also use a method I read about in Matt Fitzgerald's book, 80/20: Run Faster and Race Stronger by Training Slower. He writes about running easier than the ventilatory threshold — the pace at which your breathing becomes labored. He suggests that 80% of training should be done easier than ventilatory threshold, and he gives some advice on determining and staying within one's ventilatory threshold. The method I use is to say the Pledge of Allegiance. If it's not too hard to say, then I'm running easy enough.

The only negative to running so much slower is that I'm able to run fewer miles with the time I have. I used to knock out eight miles in about an hour and now it can take me as long as an hour and twelve minutes. Really though, it's not that much of a negative because decreasing mileage reduces my injury risk too.

After all the research I've done on running easy, I'd recommend it to anyone — not just to prevent injury but also to get faster.

Stay healthy.