What is an easy run? Pace, heart rate and why most people run them too hard

An easy run is a run slow enough that you could hold a full conversation the whole way, finish feeling like you could go again, and recover from by tomorrow. That's the whole definition. No pace target, no heroics, no leaderboard.

It's also the most commonly botched workout in running. Most people's "easy" is a steady, moderately hard effort that's too fast to recover from and too slow to make them faster. This post covers what is considered an easy run, easy run pace, easy run HR, how an easy run differs from a tempo run, and why slowing down is usually the fastest fix in your training. If you'd rather have someone hold you to it, that's what a running coach in your pocket is for.

What is an easy run?

An easy run is low-intensity running done for aerobic fitness and recovery. It's the default session in almost every running plan, from a first 5K to a 12-week half plan, and it usually makes up most of your weekly running.

What it's for:

• ›Building your aerobic base. The slow, unglamorous engine work that everything faster sits on.
• ›Adding volume you can recover from. Easy runs let you run more often without wrecking the sessions that matter.
• ›Making hard runs possible. If your easy days are easy, your hard days can actually be hard.

That last point is the one people miss. Easy runs aren't filler between the "real" workouts. They're what the real workouts are built on. And if you're still asking what is a fartlek run, that's one of those harder sessions: surges of faster running inside a continuous run.

What is considered an easy run?

Use these checks. If a run fails any of them, it wasn't easy.

• ›The talk test. You can speak in full sentences without gasping. A study that regulated running speed purely by the talk test found it produced appropriate training intensities, including ones suited to recovery and long sessions (Woltmann et al., 2015).
• ›Effort. About 3–4 out of 10 on an RPE scale. Comfortable, not lazy.
• ›Heart rate. In zone 2 for most of the run (more on that below).
• ›The next day. You wake up and could run again. If an "easy" run leaves you sore or flat, it was too fast or too long.
• ›The finish. You could have kept going for a while.

If you can't tell whether a run was easy, it probably wasn't.

Easy run pace

There's no universal easy run pace. It depends on your fitness, the weather, the terrain, how you slept and what you did yesterday. Your easy pace on a cool, flat morning and on a hot, hilly evening can be very different, and that's fine.

What you can say:

• ›It's slower than any race pace. Noticeably slower than your marathon pace, never mind your 5K pace.
• ›It's slower than your ego wants. For a lot of runners, a properly easy pace feels embarrassingly slow at first.
• ›It changes day to day. Run the effort, accept the pace.

To find yours: run 20–30 minutes on a flat route at an effort where you can talk comfortably and your heart rate stays in zone 2. Note the average pace. That's your easy pace today, in those conditions. Repeat every few weeks. Over months, you want to see that pace get faster at the same heart rate. That's fitness.

If you want faster paces, how to improve running pace is a separate question, and the answer still starts with keeping these runs slow.

Easy run HR: which heart rate zone?

Easy runs live in zone 2 of the five-zone model, at roughly 60–70% of your max heart rate, with warm-ups and very easy days in zone 1 below that. Those bands are the common convention you'll find from watch makers like Polar; the zone system explains each one and how to set your own.

Two warnings:

• ›Formula zones are estimates. If your watch set your zones from your age, your "zone 2" could be off in either direction. Cross-check it with the talk test.
• ›Heart rate drifts. On longer or warmer runs, heart rate creeps up at the same pace. Slow down to stay in the band rather than chasing the pace you started at.

If your watch says zone 2 and you can't finish a sentence, trust your lungs, not the watch.

Why most people run their easy runs too hard

Because "a decent run" feels like the point. Most recreational runners have one pace, steady and moderately hard, and use it for everything. It feels productive. It's mostly just tiring.

The people who are fastest at racing don't train that way. Across descriptive studies of competitive endurance athletes, Seiler (2010) found about 80% of sessions were done at low intensity, with about 20% dominated by hard work. That's the idea behind 80/20 running, as Matt Fitzgerald explained it for everyday runners: mostly easy, a little hard, very little in the middle.

There's experimental evidence too:

• ›In subelite runners over five months, a program with relatively more low-intensity training improved a simulated 10.4 km cross-country race time more than one with more moderately hard training, with the amount of high-intensity work kept similar (Esteve-Lanao et al., 2007).
• ›In a 10-week trial in recreational runners, both groups improved their 10K, and the authors concluded the polarized, mostly easy program produced greater training effects than one built around moderately hard running (Muñoz et al., 2014).

Small studies, specific populations. But they point the same way as the descriptive data: slowing down most runs tends to help, not hurt.

Easy vs tempo run

An easy run and a tempo run are different tools. Mixing them up is how "medium everything" happens.

The problem zone is in between: runs that are too hard to be easy and too easy to be tempo. A few of those are fine. A whole week of them is a plan with no easy days and no hard days.

Tempo is only one of the hard options. What's an interval workout, for comparison? Short, very hard reps with recoveries, usually in zone 5. Both belong in a week that's mostly easy running.

Easy runs vs recovery runs vs long runs

Three kinds of slow running, three slightly different jobs.

• ›Easy runs are your everyday runs: zone 2, conversational, 30–60 minutes for most people.
• ›Recovery runs are even easier: short, zone 1 to low zone 2, often the day after a hard session. If you lift, many of your easy runs end up doing the job of recovery runs anyway.
• ›Long runs are easy runs that are longer. Same effort, more time on your feet. Our guide to long run training covers how long, how slow and how to build them.

If a recovery run leaves you more tired than before it, it wasn't one.

Easy runs for runners who also lift

Easy runs are the sessions you can put next to lifting without either one suffering. That makes them the glue of a hybrid week.

• ›Pair easy runs with heavy leg days, ideally the run first or on the same day, so the hard run days stay fresh.
• ›Keep them truly easy after leg day. Heavy legs plus a "moderate" run is how both sessions get worse.
• ›Add strides to one or two easy runs a week: four to six relaxed 20-second accelerations at the end. They keep your legs used to moving fast without adding a hard day. Get sprint training for beginners explained by any decent coach and it starts here: short, fast, relaxed, full recovery.

Common easy run mistakes

• ›Running with faster friends. Lovely social run. Not an easy run.
• ›Checking pace instead of effort. Nobody grades your easy pace. Run by feel and heart rate.
• ›Making up for a missed workout. A skipped interval session doesn't get squeezed into Thursday's easy run.
• ›Going faster because you feel good. Bank it for the next hard day.
• ›Walking feels like failure. It isn't. Walking the hills to stay in zone 2 is the correct answer.

How exrsz handles easy runs

exrsz builds a periodized plan from your goal, schedule, level and equipment, with easy runs as the base and harder sessions placed where they won't collide with your lifting. It adapts each week to how you actually trained and reshuffles missed sessions, so a skipped workout doesn't quietly turn your easy days into hard ones.

FAQ

What is an easy run?

An easy run is a low-intensity run, slow enough to talk in full sentences the whole way, usually in heart rate zone 2 at about 3–4 out of 10 effort. It builds aerobic fitness and is the session most of your running should be.

What should my easy run pace be?

There's no single number. Run at an effort where you can talk comfortably and your heart rate stays in zone 2, and let the pace be whatever it is that day. It will be noticeably slower than any race pace.

What heart rate is an easy run?

Zone 2, roughly 60–70% of max heart rate in the common five-zone model (Polar). If your zones come from an age formula, cross-check them with the talk test.

What is the difference between an easy and tempo run?

An easy run is conversational, zone 2 and builds your base. A tempo run is a sustained hard effort in zone 4 that targets lactate threshold, where you can only say a few words at a time.

How many of my runs should be easy?

Most of them. Well-trained endurance athletes do about 80% of sessions at low intensity (Seiler, 2010), and most recreational runners do well with one or two harder sessions a week and the rest easy.