The Worst Part of Running SLOW to Run Faster (AND HOW TO FIX IT)

Best advice I've ever received , I'm injuring free this year and a minute faster in my 5ks , I love this channel.

The worst part is seeing "Unproductive" on the watch

As a high school cross-country coach here in the States, I have to remind our runners of the run slow to run fast approach literally every time we meet. This is our focus right now until the American school year starts. We do augment these runs with strides just to let the legs know we're thinking about them. We will incorporate more challenging workouts in the fall but right now they are developing a nice aerobic base.

Another trouble running slow is that changes are sometimes hard to see or even appear to regress, especially during warmer months. There are little to no examples available of seasonal pace/HR/power output changes across multiple years to help new runners set good expectations. I suspect that since so many runners see easy pace stagnation or regression in summer they doubt their training and either give up or start training too hard.

Something that effects me (and maybe others): doing a majority of your runs easy makes it more possible to hit your training benchmarks. If I ran all my runs hard and fast, I would only run two times a week. I’d be too exhausted to do more! By making most of the runs easy, I can stick to a 4-5 run week.

Fully supportive of this approach. In two and a half years (Since Dec 2019 until now) of consistently running easy most of my workouts I've improved my easy pace from some 6:40 to 5:40 and my marathon PB by 73 minutes (Kapsehoop 2018 4h48m; Rome 2022 3h35m) and practically injury free.

I love slow running. 47 years old, working my way from 105 down to 80 kg after a long period of letting myself go. Currently 12 kg down since middle of July, thanks to daily runs of 6-13K and OMAD fasting. I usually warm up for 1-1.5 km at 7.00 min pace and gradually increase to 5.45, staying aerobic and comfortable throughout 95% of the run (upping the pace towards the end for a good muscle pump). Despite going slow I have seen tremendous improvement to my endurance and lower body muscle mass. No injuries other than a bit of muscle soreness and inner thigh chafing during the first week! ;)

Last year as a 55 year old runner i changed my training to maffs low heartrate training and It enabled me to focus on my form and avoided the injury risk as an older runner By the end of the year i had smashed all my PB's 5k,10k, half and full marathon I also started this year off by running my first short ultra Ran 56k at about 6:30 pace and had no recovery injuries The hardest part with the slow training was running so slowly at the start to keep my heartrate low Patience got me there in the end

It's frustrating at first, but in a week you get used to going slow. Just as you would avoid ego lifting in the gym and lift the weights you can comfortably do 8 reps or so, slow running is the same. You gotta go at a pace that your body can handle metabolically and not "ego run". Also, you can never go too slow, but you will always go too fast so throttle down.

3 months ago, I was running at a 9'00" pace. Along the way, I really had to be patient and make sure my body adjusted despite my mind's excitement to go faster. Now I'm comfortably running at 6'30" and looking forward to that sub 30 5k and sub 1hr 10k. 🙏 Patience is definitely the key here.

When you think of exercising, especially running, we think "go as hard as you can for as long as possible" but when we train or compete in that red zone, we're prone to injury. So instead of training in the red zones, I’m draining my "stamina bar" until my lower perceived effort IS in the red zone. So stay in the green zone until it turns red.

I started running less than three years ago and I’ve been consistent with training and running in the correct zones. At times it felt like I wanted to run faster but in the last few months I can see huge improvements in pace. Back in August last year my pace in zone two was avg 5.40 per km and HR avg was 155 and my last long run a couple of days ago my 25 km long run my pace was 4.40 per km and avg HR was 140… the process does work and it’s now transferring into faster races

I'm breaking all my previous Parkrun PB's this year. Why? Because I'm running 30/40 seconds slower than my old training pace. It's not like I wasn't trying before, I was. But this training is working. Plus it has made me mentally stronger. Today for instance, I just ran 52 seconds quicker than my old course PB at Knowsley parkrun.

A better term to start using for the "slow training", might be "easy training". Mainly because when we describe a "hard" workout, we describe it as that, hard, and not "fast".

Just started running, thought I would run slow, hold back. I have ran 50kms 5x 10 in the last 2 weeks. I have seen enormous gains with lowering HR and speed. Running at 8 kms an hour.. I started with 173 HR average, with each run dropping average HR down to 153 now, while my pace is up to 9.5kms an hour. So happy with the progress. Effort feels moderate.

Ran slow for the first time. Increased from 8-9 min per mile and went to 11-12 per mile, and for the first time ever I ran for 1 hour and 10 minutes, and hit and broke 6 miles for the first time. This was yesterday. I am prepping to be very very very very prepared for military training. Not just good at running, but able to do 3 miles in 21-24 minutes.

Such powerful truths explained in this video! 90% of my runs are slow and long. I rarely have any injuries and I am always well rested. I love the advice!!!! Keep it up Coach Perry.

Hey Devlin!! What an awesome change you've done these last months 😧😲

It’s interesting how people complain about running slow, either because they are not seeing instant gratification results or because running slow requires to think and slow down considerably. If runners were asked to run in Zone4 80% of the time, they would complain as well and not do it. Been running for over 20 years and was introduced to Zone2 slow running several months ago. I can run farther, recup faster, feel better when my run is over and look forward to the next day Zone2 session every morning when I wake up 😁

Great advice and explanations