Easy Running
What is it?
Easy running is exactly what it sounds like — running at a comfortable, conversational pace. It typically makes up the majority of a well-structured training week, even for competitive runners. Despite being the "simplest" session type, it's arguably the most important.
How it works
Easy running trains your aerobic system — the network of capillaries, mitochondria, and slow-twitch muscle fibres that allow your body to use oxygen efficiently to produce energy. Because the effort is low, you can sustain it for longer periods and more frequently than harder sessions, which means more total volume of aerobic stimulus over time.
Running easy also:
- Builds the structural durability of muscles, tendons, and ligaments so they can handle higher-intensity work later
- Allows your body to recover from harder sessions while still adding training volume
- Improves your body's ability to use fat as fuel, sparing glycogen for harder efforts
Why it matters
It's tempting to think harder sessions drive all the improvement, but the research and practice of elite training consistently shows the opposite: most training volume, even for elite runners, is run at easy effort — often 70–80% of total weekly mileage.
Easy running is what allows you to absorb the harder sessions (threshold, intervals, hills) without breaking down. Skipping easy runs, or running them too fast, is one of the most common reasons runners plateau or get injured — it doesn't leave enough separation between "easy" and "hard," so hard sessions never feel fully recovered into.
Example session — beginner
30 minutes easy
- Run at a pace where you can hold a full conversation without gasping
- No pace targets — effort-based only
- Finish feeling like you could have kept going
Example session — advanced
60–75 minutes easy, optionally with strides
- Run at conversational effort throughout
- Optionally finish with 4–6 × 20 second relaxed strides to maintain leg speed without adding fatigue
Join us — Social Thursdays
Easy running doesn't have to be solo. Every Thursday we run Social Thursdays — an easy-paced 5K or 7K, open to all paces, with the same conversational effort described above. It's a great way to bank easy mileage while running alongside the group rather than on your own.
Book your spot on Social Thursdays
How to pace it
Easy pace should feel genuinely easy — a common guide is roughly 60–75 seconds per mile slower than 10K race pace, or a heart rate around 60–75% of max. If you're unsure whether you're running too fast, you probably are — most runners default to running easy days too hard.
Coaching tip
The biggest mistake in easy running isn't doing too little of it — it's doing it too fast. Slowing down on easy days is what makes hard days actually hard, and that contrast is where the real training benefit comes from.
Related sessions
Easy running underpins everything else in your training week. Explore the harder session types it supports:
- Threshold Running — sustained efforts that raise your lactate threshold, including our 10-week progressive series
- Interval Running — shorter, harder efforts that raise your aerobic ceiling
- Hill Running — a lower-impact way to build strength and power
Not sure how slow "easy" should be? Try our Training Paces Calculator.