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2007 Kalamazoo Klassic
On Your Mark, Get Set…….Go? Not quite! Your Saturday long runs and easy recovery runs aren’t the Cheetah Chase nor are they a sprint. The purpose of easy runs and long endurance runs is to build aerobic conditioning and train the body to conserve fuel. These runs are done at about 45 – 1:30 min/mile slower than marathon race pace, 1:00 – 2:00 slower than half marathon race pace or 1:30 – 2:30 slower than 5k race pace. This should correlate to 65 – 80 percent of your maximum heart rate.
Aerobic conditioning can be any distance run (or run/walk) of 20 minutes to three hours in duration. Depending on your goal time, fitness level, experience and race distance, the distance of your aerobic conditioning runs will vary quite significantly. Regardless of what distance you are training for, aerobic conditioning represents the majority of your training program.
Endurance long & easy runs will:
Increase the number of capillaries that can bring oxygen-rich blood to your muscles
Increase the amount of oxidative enzymes within the muscle cells that help to use oxygen more efficiently
Train the body to conserve valuable muscle glycogen supplies and use fat as fuel
Strengthen the tendons and connective tissues
Improve pulmonary capacity
If you repeatedly run your easy runs too fast, you will soon eventually find yourself in the black hole known as overtraining. Not only that, but the lingering fatigue from a long run done too hard will make it more challenging to complete quality track workouts. The best benefit of all is that you will be able to carry on a conversation, get to know your training partners and have fun on the run!
