Training guide
Easy training makes you faster
Many people train too hard on their easy days and too easy on their hard ones. Keeping most sessions easy is one of the simplest ways to get better.
Updated
Why easy?
Easy training builds your heart's and muscles' ability to work for a long time, without making you so tired that your next session suffers. That lets you train more over the weeks, and makes the hard sessions really good. Many endurance athletes train about four fifths of their time easy.
How easy is easy?
- You should be able to talk in full sentences.
- Your heart rate is in the lower zones, counted from your own threshold.
- It often feels too slow at first. That is the point.
When it goes wrong
- Every session at a medium pace: too hard to recover from, too easy to get faster.
- Chasing pace on an easy run when it is hot, hilly or you slept badly.
- Skipping the easy days to fit in more hard ones.
What TriQuest does
- Most sessions in the plan are easy, and hard sessions get easier days in between.
- Workouts have targets in your own zones, so easy is easy for you.
- After the session you see your time in each zone, and the Coach can answer why a session felt heavy.
Common questions
Common questions about easy training
Will running slowly make me faster?
Yes, together with a few harder sessions a week. Easy training builds the base that speed rests on.
Can I walk up hills on an easy run?
Yes. Keep the effort easy, even if it means walking for a while.
More about TriQuest
Training guides
Heart rate zones, tests, long runs, tapering and race fuelling.
Heart rate zones
What the zones are, how to work them out and how they guide workouts.
Tapering before a race
Less volume, the same sharpness: arrive at the start rested.
The long run
How long, how fast and how the long run should grow.
Ready to train smarter?
Let TriQuest bring the plan, the workouts, the analysis and the coaching together in one place.