How slow should an easy run feel?

Most people who run regularly have a confession to make about easy runs: theirs are not very easy. The pace creeps up because slow feels a bit embarrassing, because the street is watching, because last Tuesday was faster. The easy run is the one that most needs protecting from our own pride.

The talk test, in practice

The most useful gauge needs no equipment. The US CDC puts it neatly: during moderate activity you can talk but not sing, and during vigorous activity you cannot say more than a few words without pausing for breath. An easy run lives at the gentle end of that range.

In real life that means:

• You could tell a friend a long, slightly rambling story about your neighbour's renovation, in full sentences.
• You are breathing more than when walking, but not in a rhythm you have to think about.
• You could nod politely at a dog and keep going without a recovery stride.

If you run alone, say a sentence out loud every few minutes. You will feel silly once, and then it becomes a habit.

Why easy should actually feel easy

An easy run is supposed to be the kind of outing you could repeat tomorrow without a second thought. It is where you notice the light on the water, settle into a rhythm and come home feeling more awake than when you left. When every run becomes a quiet race against yourself, running starts to feel like a chore, and chores get skipped.

There is also a social dividend. Easy pace is talking pace, which is why a weekly run with a friend often ends up being the best conversation of the week. If you want more on that, our page on running with a fitter friend has the diplomatic details.

Why it feels too slow

Expect the first few easy runs to feel almost silly. Your legs will want more and your ego will want more still. A few things help:

• Start slower than you think. The first ten minutes are often the clumsiest part of any run anyway, so let them be gentle.
• Run by breath, not by number. Your easy pace changes with heat, hills, sleep, wind and what you had for lunch. Breath adjusts automatically; a target pace does not.
• Allow walking. On a hill, a short walk is a perfectly reasonable way of keeping the run easy.
• Pick a route without a stopwatch feel. A park loop, a river path, a seafront, rather than the stretch where you always check your time.

Letting go of the watch

A watch is not the enemy, but on easy days it tends to become a judge. Try one of these:

• Cover the pace field and only look at time or distance.
• Leave the watch at home once a week and run for "about half an hour".
• Look at the numbers afterwards, out of curiosity, rather than during.

The goal is to run the way the day allows. On a hot afternoon that might be a pace you would not admit to at dinner. That is fine. Nobody at dinner was there.