Easy Runs: What for?

Season 2: The Road To Boston

Chapter 2. Road Work
2.5 Easy Runs: Take it Real Easy

You are born to run.. Much like this Ferrari F1.

Building your body lean and mean.. Be the best the world has ever seen.

No quitting, just surviving.. You can take the win.

Run strong and fast and keep believing.. A Ferrari thrives within.

A Ferrari thrives within. Oh Yeah!!!
It might have been much better if an actual Ferrari can be used in road racing, though. :p

As a runner, we submit ourselves as engines and cars on road racing. We 'ride' our own bodies from start to finish. It is therefore a must, to take care of our bodies and make sure that it is at its best come race day. Maintenance is a must . Injuries are nightmares for there are no spare parts.

For elite runners, to race is to win. For the competitive ones, to race is to be at their absolute best - be it a PR or a longest distance ever endured and finished. For some others, they just come to run or walk and enjoy their way to the finish. Whatever the goal is, every runner wants to be in near perfect condition come race day.

Still, injuries mount and sideline so many runners for weeks, months or years, God forbid!. We either train too long to reach farther distances or too fast to register faster times. Long slow distance runs (LSD), Tempos and Intervals are the runners' best tools to seek these improvements. Admittedly, runners do want to ran faster and longer.

We do want to unleash the Ferrari within us. To bring out the very best that we believe and know we are. I know I do.

The thing is, unlike a Ferrari or any other engines, we get tired. We're humans. Our muscles do get exhausted after a hard training run. And we need to rest and recover to be able to fire up our engines for another grueling run.

For dedicated runners, rest and recovery is both a mental and physical battle. We often want to keep improving and get going on the road. Two problems of runners are (1) over training (or burn out) and (2) running too much too soon. I am guilty of both, especially last year when I decided I'd be a marathoner. Competitive runners not only need to train hard, long and fast. They also need to build enough mileage. And building enough mileage is no easy task.

Fortunately, there are Easy runs. Easy runs are like maintenance check ups for our engines within. By doing these easy maintenance runs, we get to rest from long and speed workout runs. We run slower and shorter. We let our legs and lungs recover. And still be able to log running miles. Running easy for 2-3 times a week will have huge impact not only by letting our body recover, it also piles up kilometers and kilometers on our training logs. It lets us build mileage while resting and recovering!

With these benefits of running easy, how many runners actually go for easy maintenance runs? How many times a week? How slow and how short?

Remember, we have muscles and tissues and not engines and spare parts.

Online Surveys & Market Research

Take it Real Easy

I have easy runs on my training schedule. I have it twice a week and 5-10 kilometers for each easy run. Sometimes though, I still push myself harder than necessary. Almost forgetting to take it easy and use it to let the muscles recover from speed work or from Sunday's long run.

I have written this entry to remind myself of the benefits of running easy. Of just enjoying the run. I can also pay lots of attention to my running details while running slow. Am I stooping down? Am I swinging my arms too high? Am I still using my forefoot for landing or striking? Or am I using the heels? Do I run tall? Do I run soft? How's my breathing patterns? Etc.

When I run slower than my race pace, I can see the imperfections and faults that I do especially when I'm getting tired and lazy. When I run fast, the focus is just running fast and I often forget about the details.

I can now see clearly why Easy runs are so important. And why they are sometimes called maintenance runs.