You’re trying to become a quicker runner, so why on Earth would you waste so much time running slowly?
It can feel odd. You lace up your shoes intending to get fitter and improve your pace, only to deliberately hold back. And when Strava, parkrun results, and old PBs are constantly giving you numbers to chase, an easy run can feel like you’re not doing enough.
But easy runs are far from wasted training. In fact, they’re one of the fundamentals of being a stronger, more consistent and ultimately faster runner. They help you build endurance, recover between tougher sessions, and accumulate more training without constantly pushing your body to the brink.
So, what actually qualifies as an easy run? What should your easy run pace be? And how easy is it meant to feel?
Let’s take a look at why easy running matters, the benefits it provides, and why slowing down may be one of the smartest things you can do for your running.
What Is An Easy Run?
An easy run is a low-intensity run performed at a comfortable effort when you’re able to maintain a conversation without becoming heavily out of breath. Unlike a tempo run or interval session, the goal here isn’t to push your pace or finish up feeling knackered. Rather, easy running should feel comfortable, relaxed, and sustainable.
But how do you know whether you’re actually running easy enough? There are a few different ways to judge your effort.
The Conversation Test
The simplest method is also one of the most useful: the conversation test. If you’re able to speak comfortably in full sentences, you’re probably at an appropriate easy-run effort. If you’re struggling to get more than a few words out, it’s probably time to slow down.
Rate of Perceived Exertion
You can also use rate of perceived exertion (RPE), which is essentially how hard the run feels on a scale of 1-10. An easy run should generally sit around 2-4 out of 10, feeling comfortable rather than challenging.
Heart Rate
Heart rate is another handy measure. Easy runs generally sit at a relatively low aerobic intensity, although your ideal heart-rate range will depend on your individual fitness and physiology. You don’t need a heart-rate monitor to run easy, but it can be handy if you enjoy training by numbers.
Check Out Our Guide To Being A Data-Obsessed Runner
Pace
Perhaps most importantly, there isn’t one universal easy run pace. Your easy pace depends on your fitness, experience, terrain, weather, fatigue, and even how you’re feeling that day. Your easy pace may be totally different from another runner’s – and that’s totally normal.
Why Are Easy Runs So Important?
Easy runs may not feel especially impressive, but they play a huge role in building a stronger, more capable runner. While hard sessions are usually the ones that get attention, easy running provides the foundation that allows those harder efforts to work.
Easy runs can:
- Build your aerobic fitness by training your body to use oxygen efficiently.
- Improve endurance by helping you spend more time on your feet without excessive fatigue.
- Help your body adapt to running by gradually strengthening your muscles, tendons, and cardiovascular system.
- Promote recovery by keeping you moving without placing the same demands on your body as a hard workout.
- Allow you to accumulate more mileage without turning every run into a demanding training session.
- Reduce the fatigue caused by hard training, giving your body the chance to recover between quality sessions.
- Help you stay consistent by making your overall training load more manageable.
- Support faster race performances by building the aerobic fitness and endurance required to sustain a faster pace.
In other words, easy runs aren’t just the runs you do when you’re not training hard. They’re an important part of the training itself. The next question is why these seemingly gentle miles can have such a dramatic impact on your running.
6 Benefits Of Easy Runs
Easy runs may not leave you on the floor gasping for air or give you an impressive number to post on Strava, but that doesn’t mean they’re not doing anything. In fact, some of the most important adaptations in your running happen during the miles that feel almost uneventful.
From building your aerobic base to helping you recover between harder sessions, here are six reasons easy running deserves a regular spot in your training calendar.
1. Easy Runs Build Your Aerobic Base
If you want to become a better endurance runner, you need a strong aerobic base. Your aerobic system is responsible for supplying your muscles with the oxygen they need to keep working, making it fundamental to everything from a relaxed 5k to a long-distance race.
Easy runs for endurance help develop this system without placing the same level of stress on your body as high-intensity training. Over time, regular easy running can improve your ability to sustain effort for longer and make running at previously tough paces feel more manageable.
You may not spot these changes from one easy run to the next, but they’re nevertheless a crucial part of becoming a better runner.
2. Easy Runs Help You Recover
Running doesn’t always have to mean pushing yourself to the max.
After a tough interval session, tempo run or race, your body needs time to recover. Easy running gives you the space to keep moving and maintain your training routine without creating the same demands as another hard session.
This is where easy runs for recovery are especially useful. A gentle run can get you out the door without turning recovery into another battle, although complete rest is still the order of the day when your body needs it.
The important thing is recognising that easy running should complement your hard training, not compete with it.
3. Easy Runs Help You Run More
Imagine trying to run every session as fast as possible. You’d probably feel great for a few workouts before the accumulated fatigue started catching up with you.
Easy running gives you another option.
Because the intensity is lower, you can accumulate more training volume without making every run physically demanding. That may mean adding another easy few kilometres to your week, extending your long run, or just getting more comfortable spending time on your feet.
And more isn’t always better – your mileage still needs to increase sensibly – but easy runs make it so much more realistic to build your training gradually.
4. Easy Runs Can Make You Faster
This may sound like a contradiction, but stick with me here. If you’re trying to run faster, shouldn’t you be running faster?
Not necessarily.
Easy runs don’t magically make you faster on their own. Rather, they help create the fitness, endurance, and consistency that allow you to perform better when you do run hard.
A balanced training week may include intervals, tempo running, or hill sessions that specifically challenge your speed and fitness. Easy running provides the lower-intensity work around those sessions, helping you recover and continue training.
So, can easy runs make you faster? Indirectly, absolutely.
Sometimes, the best way to improve your hard running is to stop trying to make every run challenging.
5. Easy Runs Help You Handle Hard Training
Hard workouts are where much of the obvious challenge in a training plan stems from. Intervals, hill repeats, tempo runs, and races all place significant stress on your body.
But you can’t keep hammering yourself day after day, week after week, and expect to improve indefinitely.
Easy running gives your training some much-needed balance. By keeping the runs between your harder sessions genuinely easy, you give yourself a better shot at recovering before it’s time to push again.
It’s a simple principle worth remembering:
Hard days hard. Easy days easy.
An easy run shouldn’t be a watered-down version of your interval session. It has a different purpose entirely.
6. Easy Runs Help You Stay Consistent
Perhaps the biggest benefit of easy running is also the simplest: it makes training more sustainable.
The best training plan isn’t necessarily the one containing the hardest workouts. It’s the one you can keep following week after week.
If every run leaves you exhausted, eventually something needs to give. You may begin skipping sessions, cutting runs short, or losing motivation entirely. Easy runs provide some breathing space, allowing running to remain a consistent part of your life rather than a constant test of how much discomfort you can swallow.
And consistency matters. One brilliant workout isn’t going to upend your running, but months of sensible, consistent training can.
That’s ultimately what easy running is about: giving yourself the foundation to continue showing up.
How Easy Should An Easy Run Be?
An easy run needs to feel genuinely comfortable. If you’re struggling to hold a conversation, breathing heavily, or constantly fighting the urge to slow down, those are all solid signs that you’re probably running too hard.
There are a few different ways to judge whether your effort is easy enough:
| Method | Easy-run indicator |
| RPE | Around 2-4/10 |
| Conversation | You can speak in full sentences |
| Heart rate | Generally a lower aerobic intensity |
The conversation test is probably the easiest. You should be able to chat with a running partner without needing to stop talking every few seconds to catch your breath. It doesn’t need to feel effortless, but it should feel controlled.
RPE is another handy option. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is almost no effort and 10 is an all-out sprint, an easy run should typically sit between 2 and 4. You should finish feeling like you had plenty left in the tank.
Heart rate can provide another handy reference point, especially if you regularly train with a watch or chest strap. However, it shouldn’t become something you obsess over. Heat, hills, stress, fatigue, and other factors can all affect your heart rate.
Most importantly, pace isn’t your main consideration. Your easy run pace should mirror how your body feels on the day rather than some arbitrary number on your watch.
What Pace Should an Easy Run Be?
There is no universal easy run pace. A pace that feels genuinely easy for one runner could be far too fast – or frustratingly slow – for another.
For example, someone who is able to run a sub-25-minute 5k may find an easy pace somewhere around 6:00-7:00km, whereas another runner with the same 5k time could have a totally different comfort zone.
These numbers are illustrative rather than rigid targets. Your fitness, experience, terrain, weather, and fatigue can all change what an easy pace feels like.
When in doubt, forget the pace on your watch and listen to your effort. If it feels easy, you’re probably doing it right.
Are You Running Your Easy Runs Too Fast?
One of the biggest mistakes we see runners making is turning their easy runs into moderately tough ones.
It’s easy to think you’re being productive by squeezing a little bit more speed out of each kilometre. But there is an issue that comes with running constantly in the middle: you’re not running easy enough to recover properly, but you’re not running hard enough to get the full benefits of a quality session either.
That doesn’t mean every easy run needs to be painfully slow. But if your “easy” runs regularly leave you feeling like you’ve finished a complete workout, it’s worth taking a step back.
Signs Your Easy Run Is Too Fast
You may be running your easy runs too quickly if:
- You can’t comfortably hold a conversation.
- You’re constantly checking your pace and trying to speed up.
- You’re breathing heavily for most of the run.
- Your legs feel increasingly tired as the kilometres go by.
- You finish feeling like you’ve completed a proper workout.
- Your easy pace becomes dramatically slower whenever you’re tired or recovering.
- You struggle to hit your quality sessions later in the week.
Why Do Runners Run Their Easy Runs Too Fast?
Sometimes, it’s simply ego.
Strava makes it incredibly easy to compare your pace with everyone else’s, while the pressure to see progress can make a slow run feel unproductive. You may also feel that each run needs to “count” – and that sweating more or running faster automatically means you’re getting fitter.
But progress isn’t measured by how hard you can make every individual run.
Easy running is productive exactly because it doesn’t have to be hard. Learning to slow down when the session calls for it could ultimately help you train harder when it actually matters.
Easy Runs Vs Recovery Runs: What’s The Difference?
The terms easy run and recovery run are often used interchangeably, and there’s definitely some good overlap between them both. But they can have somewhat different purposes within a training plan.
An easy run is generally a comfortable, low-intensity run designed to build aerobic fitness and endurance while keeping fatigue relatively low. It’s a regular part of many training schedules and can make up a large proportion of your weekly mileage.
A recovery run, meanwhile, is typically even gentler. It’s usually performed after an especially demanding workout or race, with the main goal of getting some movement into your legs without adding significant additional stress.
That means a recovery run might be shorter and slower than your normal easy run. You could even find yourself running at a pace that would normally feel unusually slow.
Ultimately, though, there’s no need to get too wrapped up in the terminology. The important thing isn’t whether you call it an easy run or a recovery run. It’s whether the intensity matches the purpose of the session.
If you’re supposed to be recovering, keep it genuinely gentle. If you’re building aerobic fitness, settle into a comfortable rhythm that you could sustain without excessive effort.
Both have their place – and neither needs to be fast to be worthwhile.
How Many Easy Runs Should You Do Per Week?
For many casual runners, the majority of their weekly running should be easy. Exactly how many easy runs you need, however, totally depends on how often you run and what you’re training for.
If you run three times a week, for example, it may make sense for two of those runs to be easy, with the third being saved for a harder session. Someone running five or six times a week may have several easy runs alongside one or two quality workouts.
Your ideal balance will depend on:
- How often you run: The more frequently you train, the more important easy running becomes.
- Your experience: Beginners typically need more time to adapt to training and shouldn’t rush into lots of hard workouts.
- Your race goals: Training for a 5k may involve more speed work, while longer-distance training usually demands more substantial easy mileage.
- Your overall training load: Other exercise, long runs, and demanding sessions all contribute to fatigue.
- Your recovery: If you’re always tired, you may need more easy running – or more rest.
- Your injury history: Managing training stress is especially important if you’ve struggled with injuries in the past.
You may also have heard of the 80/20 approach, where roughly 80% of training is easy, and 20% is performed at higher intensities. It’s a handy general principle to hold, but don’t feel like you need to hit those numbers perfectly every week.
The biggest lesson is simple: easy running should make up a substantial part of your training, not be treated as an afterthought.
When Should You Do Easy Runs?
Easy runs can fit around almost any training schedule, but they’re especially useful when planted between the sessions that put the most strain on your body.
For example, a casual runner training for a 5k may structure their week like this:
Monday: Easy run
Tuesday: Intervals
Wednesday: Easy run
Thursday: Tempo run
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Parkrun or race
Sunday: Easy run or long run
This isn’t a perfect schedule that every runner needs to follow. Your perfect week will depend on your experience, goals, availability, and how well you recover between sessions.
The important principle is to use easy runs to create space between the sessions that really stress your body. If Tuesday’s intervals leave your legs tired, Wednesday shouldn’t become another opportunity to prove how fast you can run.
Rather, slow down and allow your body to recover before your next demanding session.
Think of your training week as a balance rather than a collection of individual runs. The hard workouts provide the stimulus; the easy runs give you the room to absorb it.
Check Out Our Guide On How Often Beginner Runners Should Run Each Week
The Biggest Mistake You Can Make With Easy Runs
The biggest mistake you can make with easy runs isn’t running too slowly.
It’s being afraid to run slowly.
You’re not aiming to wow the crowd on Strava. It doesn’t need to be your fastest Thursday, beat last week’s pace or leave you feeling like you’ve conquered another workout.
It doesn’t even have to feel particularly impressive.
Its job is to help you become the runner who can show up tomorrow and do it all again.
That means putting your ego aside, ignoring the numbers when necessary and trusting that slower miles still count.
Because sometimes, the smartest thing you can do for your running is give yourself permission to take it easy.
Wrap Up
Running quicker isn’t about making every run faster.
We get it, it’s tempting to chase a quicker pace each time you lace up your shoes, especially when you see so many other runners posting great times on Strava or across social media. But progress comes from understanding that different runs have different jobs.
Your hard sessions provide the challenge. Your easy runs give you the aerobic foundation, recovery, and consistency needed to make those sessions count. They allow you to build your fitness without constantly driving yourself to the brink, helping you stay healthy and keep turning up week after week.
So, don’t be afraid to slow down. An easy run isn’t a missed opportunity to get faster – it’s part of the process.
Sometimes the most productive run of your week is the one that barely feels like a workout.
Check Out Our Guide On How To Run When You’re Out Of Shape
Loves Parkrun. Hates running uphill. After investing in his first pair of proper running shoes, James was inspired to found What We Running in 2026 with the aim of sharing his favourite tips, tricks, and motivational hacks needed to sustain a running journey.
