Most runners over 40 fall into one of three traps: they try to follow training plans designed for younger athletes, they do too many hard workouts, or they run most of their miles at the same moderate effort.

On the surface, it feels productive. You finish a run tired and feel like you’ve accomplished something. But over time, this approach leads to a familiar outcome: fatigue, plateaued performance, and eventually, injury.

What worked in your 20s or 30s doesn’t always work the same way in your 40s, 50s, and beyond.

After 40, you need a plan that covers the same types of training, but spread out more through the week to give you better recovery and allow you to hit your hard workouts at an intensity that truly moves the needle.

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Why It Happens

There are a few reasons this pattern is so common.

First, many runners still believe that more hard work equals better results. That mindset is reinforced by what we see online, where workouts are often highlighted more than consistency.

More hard work only makes you faster if you can recover and adapt to that hard work.

If you do more than you can truly handle at a given point in time, you don’t get faster, you get fatigued and injured.

Second, easy running can feel too slow. It doesn’t give the same sense of accomplishment, so runners drift toward a steady, moderately hard pace that feels “just right.”

Finally, there’s a fear of losing fitness. Slowing down feels like going backward, when in reality, it’s often the key to moving forward.

The Fix: A Simple 3-Part Weekly Structure

Instead of trying to do everything at once, the most effective approach is surprisingly simple. Structure your week around three key elements: one faster session, one long run, and everything else easy.

1. One Faster Session (Quality Day)

This is your primary stimulus for maintaining and improving speed, efficiency, and running economy. Your weekly faster session could be an interval session, hill reps, a tempo run or a fartlek session.

The key is to keep it controlled. This is not an all-out effort. You want to challenge your body without leaving yourself exhausted for days afterward.

Examples include a 20-minute tempo run, 6 × 3 minutes at a steady-hard effort, or 8 × 400m at a relaxed but quick pace. The exact workout parameters will vary depending on the event you’re training for, where you are in your training plan and your fitness level and experience.

Think of this session as a way to stimulate adaptation, not to prove how hard you can push. If you push too hard, you dig yourself into a well of fatigue that will have a negative effect on your other important training.

2. One Long Run

The long run is the foundation of your endurance. Depending on your level and goals, this might range from 75 minutes to as much as 2 1/2 hours. Once again, this depends on the race you’re training for and your level of fitness and experience.

Keep the pace easy and conversational for the most part. This is where your aerobic system develops, and over time, it becomes one of the biggest drivers of performance. It may not feel impressive in the moment, but this is where your fitness is quietly built.

As your fitness improves, you may be able to finish this run with the last 15-30 minutes at a slightly faster pace, provided you don’t build so much fatigue that you derail the rest of your training week.

3. Everything Else Easy

This is the part many runners get wrong.

Easy runs should be truly easy. You should be able to hold a conversation, keep your heart rate low, and finish feeling better than when you started. These runs support recovery, allow you to build consistent mileage, and make your harder efforts more effective.

Easy days are not wasted days. They are what make the entire system work. Younger runners can get away with running these a little bit quicker, but for masters runners, recovery is at a premium and your easy days must be easy in order to get the max benefit and adaptation from your harder runs while avoiding injury.

Sample Weekly Layout

Monday: Easy run
Tuesday: Easy run
Wednesday: Faster session
Thursday: Easy run
Friday: Easy or rest
Saturday: Easy run
Sunday: Long run

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Why This Works After 40

As you get older, recovery becomes the limiting factor more than effort. This structure respects that reality.

It gives you enough intensity to improve, enough volume to build endurance, and enough recovery to stay consistent.

The goal is not to feel tired after every run. The goal is to feel good often enough that you can keep showing up week after week.

If your running feels like it’s too much work, you’re probably trying too hard. Be willing to back off a bit on the easy days so that you can get the maximum out of your hard days.

What This Approach Avoids

Many masters runners are stuck in the cycle of slowing race times, lingering fatigue and small injuries that never quite seem to go away.

Training in a way that allows for enough volume to build your endurance base and enough intensity to sharpen your race fitness without going overboard into injury and burnout allows you to keep building week after week, month after month and year after year.

When you do this, you can build your fitness to a much higher level and avoid:

• Constant moderate effort that leads to fatigue

• Back-to-back hard days

• Injury cycles caused by poor recovery

• Plateaus from doing too much of the same intensity

If you can get to your next hard session feeling fresh, you’re training correctly.

If you’re a runner over 40 struggling to figure out a training plan that makes sense for your goals and lifestyle, let me know in the comments.

If you’re a runner over 40 trying to stay consistent, improve your fitness, and avoid the cycle of injury and burnout, this is for you.

There are no shortage of complex training plans out there. Most of them look impressive on paper, but they’re hard to sustain in real life. Especially when you’re balancing work, family, and the reality that recovery isn’t what it used to be.

This is different.

Full Stride Running Club is built around a simple idea: the vast majority of us masters runners don’t need more complexity - we need a common sense structure we can stick with consistently that provides results.

Each week, I’ll share a straightforward training plan based on what I’m actually doing myself. It follows a proven format:

- One faster session (tempo or intervals)
- One long run
- Everything else easy

That’s it.

This approach is designed to help you build aerobic fitness, stay healthy, and gradually improve without constantly feeling exhausted or risking injury.

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The Community

This is where it becomes more than just a plan.

If you’re following along:

- Share how your week went in the comments

- Ask questions

- Encourage others

Most runners train alone. I wanted to create a better option.

This is a way to stay connected, even if we’re all in different places. If you’re self-coached, this gives you a clear path to follow. If you’ve been inconsistent, it gives you a structure to return to. And if you’re already training well, it might just simplify things in a way that keeps you moving forward.

The goal isn’t perfection.

The goal is to keep showing up, week after week, and let the results take care of themselves.

Here’s this week’s training program:

Monday - Rest or easy run 30-40 minutes

Tuesday - Easy run 40-60 minutes, finish with 4-6 x 80m relaxed strides

Wednesday - 15-20 minute warm up, 3x8 minutes tempo run with a 2 minute jog recovery, 10 -15 minute jog to cool down. (Tempo pace is approximately 10-15km race pace or 85-90% maximum heart rate)

Thursday - Rest or Easy run 30-40 minutes

Friday - Easy run 40-60 minutes

Saturday - Easy run 40-60 minutes + 4-6 x 80m relaxed strides

Sunday - Long run 60-90 minutes

How to adjust this training for yourself:

Easy runs - do as much as you like based on your experience and ability. For experienced runners, I’d suggest a minimum of 30 minutes and no more than 60. Keep it as an easy effort, as slow as you want but no faster than about 80% of maximum heart rate. You can approach it progressively, starting very slow and working into a slightly quicker pace as you get warmed up. No straining or forcing the pace though.

Strides - These short should be run about mile race pace or similar effort. Keep them relaxed, focus on good form and don’t try to sprint.

Tempo - Pace as indicated above but be careful not to exceed 90% of max heart rate. It’s tempting to push a little too hard on these sessions. The goal is to gradually push your threshold up from below, not to exceed it. Going too fast isn’t better than running the correct pace and extends your recovery time between sessions.

Long Run - Run as much as you like depending on your goals, experience and the event your training for. Could be anywhere from 60 minutes to 2 hours and 30 minutes. Longer runs than this take too much out of you and may affect the quality of the rest of your training.

That’s it for this week. I’ll post a new schedule each week for you to follow along if you like.

Let me know how your training is going in the comments.

Cheers,

Dan.

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October 30, 2025

Hey there, thanks for tuning in.

I’m going to try a new format this week, a more bite sized article with one big idea, one practical tip and a weekly challenge.

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On Your Mark - The Big Idea

Most runners chase the “hero workout” — that one epic session that leaves them spent, sore, and satisfied.

The problem?

Hero workouts feel productive, but they rarely make you faster. They just make you tired. The body doesn’t reward pain — it rewards consistency. You get better not from one great workout, but from hundreds of good ones stacked together.

Hero workouts are counterproductive because training beyond the optimal level provides diminishing returns, increases injury risk, and increases recovery time.

Rather than relying on extremely hard training sessions, focus on stacking consistent days and weeks of training. Instead of trying to max out on your workouts, focus on the goal of the session and perform it to the best you can.

For example, if you are aiming for a race pace session, run the reps at your current race pace for the distance, not 5% faster. If your goal is recovery, run at a pace that leaves you feeling ready to go for your next workout.

Set — The Practical Tip

Back off your next hard session by 5%. If you were going to run intervals at 3:50/km, make it 3:55–4:00/km instead. You’ll recover faster, train again sooner, and log more total quality miles this month than if you’d buried yourself trying to prove something.

Not only that, you’ll enjoy the session a lot more if you’re not gritting your teeth and racing the session. The more you enjoy what you’re doing, the more consistent you’ll be.

Go - The Challenge

This week, skip your hardest workout.

Replace it with a controlled progression run where you start slowly, gradually accelerate and finish feeling strong, not wrecked. The run should feel smooth and challenging without straining and you should finish feeling pleasantly tired but with more in the tank.

The fitness you gain from running at a challenging but doable level will outlast the fitness you get from overreaching. You’ll feel fresher, be injured less, and have more energy for racing when it counts.

Run strong,

Dan.

If this helped you rethink your training, share it with another runner who might need permission to train smarter, not harder.

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Gone are the days when we could train as much as we want, skimp on recovery, eat anything without gaining weight and get by on little sleep.

It’s not that you can’t still run at a surprisingly high level, but it gets tougher.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. While age takes away a bit of natural speed and the ability to recover quite as quickly, it give us two big benefits, experience and adaptability.

There are ways that you can continue to enjoy your running and run well into your 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond. And not just enjoy it but also continue to get better and improve.

1. Aim to optimize, not maximize your training.

· Younger runners can get away with trying to do as much as possible, given their ability to recover faster. For a younger runner, “doing more” is a reliable way to “do better”. For masters runners, things change. For one thing, many masters runners now have an enviable base level of fitness as a result of years of training. That base of training doesn’t easily disappear. Years of training build more mitochondria, more and bigger blood vessels and capillaries (an old coach of mine referred this as your “internal plumbing”), and neuromuscular coordination and efficiency. The result of this is that you may no longer need miles and miles of slow running to create basic aerobic adaptations. I’m not saying these adaptations aren’t important at any age, but as you get older, you can focus more on specificity.

· Aim for no more than 2 hard workouts per week. Masters runners can generally handle no more than 2 hard sessions per week. What’s a hard session? Intervals, tempo runs hill reps and long runs. Anything that gets your heart rate above zone 2 or lasts longer than about 60 minutes. I like to do intervals or tempo runs on Wednesday and a long run on Sunday. This give you 2-3 days of easy zone two training or cross training to allow you to recover from your harder efforts. This also allows you be recovered enough to give your hard workouts the effort they deserve, rather than going into the session with tired legs and low motivation and making a mess of it.

· Keep your easy days easy. Generally no more than 40-45 minutes of running for most runners and at a very comfortable pace. Like the pace you might run as a warmup to a race or an interval session. You have to recover properly, especially as you age, to put in the required effort on the hard days.

· Allow at least one rest day. Many runners hate rest days. They feel like they’re slacking off or that their fitness is deteriorating. Actually, the opposite is true. When you rest, your body has the opportunity to recover and rebuild and become stronger. The mental side of this is equally important. Giving yourself a chance to relax and forget about running once or twice a week allows you to be mentally sharper and more focused on the days that you run.

2. Schedule Micro and Macro recovery periods.

· Micro recovery periods include rest days or down weeks where you run significantly less than your typical weeks. Many runners take an easier week every 4^th week to help with recovery. While it doesn’t have to be strictly every 4^th week, it doesn’t hurt to have occasional weeks of lighter training, such as doing a mini-taper before a low key race.

· Macro recovery periods are longer stretches of two to four weeks of significantly reduced training such as at the end of a racing season, or following a marathon or half marathon. These should be scheduled once or twice per year to give you a chance to really recover and reset physically and mentally.

3. Consider speed and mobility training.

· Many masters runners never sprint. They seem to think sprinting is for kids, or they’re afraid of injury and so they rarely run faster than about 5k race pace. This can be a mistake. Faster running builds stronger muscles, improves neuromuscular recruitment and improves your running efficiency. The risk of injury is real, though, so it’s crucial to warm up and cool down properly before and after and to build up to it slowly. Aim for 3-4 acceleration runs of 60-80m starting slowly and building to maybe 80% effort on the first one, working up to 90% effort for the last one. You can build up to as many as 10 of these as part of a warmup for an interval session or after an easy run. This shouldn’t be a hard workout and shouldn’t leave you sore the next day. Think of running quick but relaxed and never allow yourself to struggle on these. If you start to feel fatigued, call it a day. One or two of these sessions a week will help preserve speed, activate your fast twitch muscle fibers and improve your efficiency at race pace.

· Another thing masters runners often neglect are drills. You’ve likely seen sprinters performing these drills at your local track or prior to competition. A skips, B skips, high knees, butt kicks etc. You can search these up on Youtube for a proper demonstration. It wouldn’t hurt to have a running coach or training partner observe you on these to make sure your form doesn’t suck. These drills build specific strength and mobility in your running muscles and can greatly help with your speed and running economy, which tends to decline with age.

By incorporating these 3 elements regularly in your training, you can keep running faster for longer and maybe even capture a bit of that fountain of youth that running can help you access.

Cheers,

Dan.

Those of us who aim to continue running for a lifetime can continue to enjoy the sport and aim for meaningful goals long after the PRs have stopped coming. My fastest times are decades in the past, but I still enjoy getting out to run six days a week and aiming to improve within my current age group times.

More importantly, I still feel fit and healthy enough to enjoy an active lifestyle in my fifties and do all of the things I want to do.

With that in mind, here are three things you can do to age well as a runner and continue to maintain motivation and enjoyment into middle age and beyond.

Balance your training

Too many of the same kinds of workouts, year after year, leave you with one-dimensional fitness and, very likely, a slew of chronic overuse injuries.

If all you do is long, slow distance running, you build great aerobic fitness, but lose range of motion and can often become the "one pace runner" who can chug along at a steady pace but has trouble changing gears to sprint for the finish or catch up to a group ahead of you.

Similarly, runners who emphasize intense training year-round can become stale and lose that important aerobic base, which allows them to handle longer races better and recover well between workouts.

The way to avoid this and prolong your running longevity is to add variety to your workouts. There's a place in every training program for interval training, long runs, tempo runs, hill reps, and, at least as importantly, fun runs with your friends while in deep conversation.

All of these types of sessions contribute to your overall fitness and fulfillment as a runner.

Another advantage of adding variety is that it keeps you fresh mentally. Hammering away at the same types of training is guaranteed to leave you feeling stale after a while. Finding new ways to experience running can leave you feeling refreshed and breathe new life into your running.

Run a variety of distances and events

Focusing too much on one type of event, such as the marathon, stagnates your progress. Instead, try aiming for a marathon in the spring, cross country races in the fall, 5–10ks in the summer, and indoor track in the winter, or whatever variation appeals to you.

It doesn't have to be this exact mix of course, but mixing up your race distances can help build endurance or speed for your ideal events. All pace ranges and types of training build fitness in different ways and the variety keeps you strong, fast, and motivated when your key races come around.

Don't be afraid to take a breather

Another aspect of balance in your training is the need to incorporate rest and recovery along with the hard training. It's impossible to continue training hard for long stretches of time without a break, both physically and mentally. There's a time to train hard and a time to rest. Runners who stay in the game for years come to understand this sooner or later.

It's almost like your training becomes an extended interval workout, with regular periods of effort and recovery, repeated over and over. These recovery periods give your body a chance to heal and refresh your mind, allowing you to give your best effort when it comes time to train hard again.

I've had many seasons of rest and recovery over the years. After many years of hard training in high school and university, I gradually wound down my training, ran a couple of road races, hobbled my way through a marathon at 24, and then pretty much took the next seven years off.

When I returned to running in my early 30s, I had a bit of a renaissance and put in the hardest training of my life for a few more years. I ran my lifetime best marathon and half marathon along the way.

By the time I hit 40, I could tell I was getting past my prime and began to gradually ease off again. Then when I hit 50, I discovered masters track and started putting in the speedwork and intervals necessary to do well in those events again.

I'm sure at some point I'll start to hit a plateau and ease back on the running again for a while, and that's ok. Follow your motivation and energy in each season of your life and don't be afraid to take a step back and reinvent yourself from time to time.

By challenging yourself in different ways, changing up your training, and learning to take a step back and reinvent yourself every so often, you can keep your running fresh and enjoyable throughout your lifetime.

I used to be a perfectionist when it came to running.

For years, I scoured every running book and article I could find, looking for the answer that would take me from a decent regional runner to a great one.

I was convinced of two things: first, I had no real talent and would therefore have to rely on training smarter, harder, or simply more than anyone else. Second, I was sure there must be some secret to running well that elite runners possessed and weren’t sharing with others. If I could only learn the secret, so I thought, I could finally get to the level I so desired.

Spoiler alert: I was wrong. Hopelessly, irretrievably wrong.

The Fallacy of Training Harder and Smarter than Everyone Else

For one thing, I did possess some talent. Not world-beating talent, but enough that I won my fair share of races and had some achievements of which I was proud. But mostly, trying to train harder, smarter, or more than everyone else hindered my progress substantially.

It hindered me because trying to train as hard as I could left me with very little energy for actual races. I flogged myself in practice several times a week and would frequently run some good races early in the season, then fail miserably later on when the Championship races came around.

I thought I was a head case. More than one of my coaches thought so too (not that they ever said it in so many words…). Turns out, I was just over-trained.

All of that hard training left me exhausted, stressed out, and dreading the ordeal on race days. When the going got tough in the race, instead of mentally looking forward to challenging myself to see what I could do, all I was thinking was, “Oh God, not this again.”

One of my high school coaches almost stumbled on the problem. He noticed I was sweating buckets, even in warmups, and recognized that I was over-stressed and that something was not right. He suggested maybe dietary issues or lack of sleep were the problem, never realizing I was running workouts three times a week that were far more difficult than any of my races. And on my “recovery days,” I was running far closer to a threshold pace than an easy pace. I was cooked, but I was convinced I wasn’t training hard enough.

As I got older, my training errors started to hinder me in other ways. This time through injury. As I got into my mid-thirties, I was convinced I needed to run the 100 miles per week I thought Olympic calibre athletes required. I never got higher than the mid-80s, but still, I was injured frequently, grumpy and irritable 90% of the time, and very inconsistent in races. I’d run a couple of good races, then have a complete disaster next time out. I was still trying to train harder than anyone else and still paying the price.

It wasn’t until I hit my 50s that I started to become more consistent. I cut back to only one faster workout per week, slowed down a lot of my easier runs, and ran a weekly mileage level that was more appropriate for my age and ability.

To my great surprise, I started running better in races. I had more determination, more fight, and more desire to compete during the actual races since I wasn’t competing with myself several times a week in training. I managed to string together long stretches of training without getting injured. I actually started to enjoy running more than ever before.

The Fallacy that Elite Runners Have It All Figured Out

The other aspect of this was the assumption that elite runners somehow had it all figured out. Over my running years, I was lucky enough to be coached by an Olympian, a national cross-country team member, and a coach of an Olympic silver medallist. Three people who I assumed had it all figured out. As it turned out, I ran at about the same level as each one.

Not only that, I’ve seen interviews with former elites who’ve spoken about how they significantly overtrained during their competitive years and would’ve run faster had they trained more sensibly. Undoubtedly they had a lot of talent and did a lot of things right, but they didn’t have a monopoly on training knowledge just because they made a national team or some other lofty achievement.

The Power of Persistence

Instead of focusing on all that, if I could start over again, I’d focus on the value of persistence.

Former Canadian national team runner Steve Boyd once remarked that if there was one singular talent required for running success, it was the talent for getting your ass out the door to run every day. There is a lot of truth in that statement.

Or there is the famous quote from John L Parker’s Once A Runner, “What was the secret, they wanted to know. In a thousand different ways they wanted to know The Secret. And none of them, not one, was prepared, truly prepared to believe that it was not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most un-profound and heart rending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottom of his training shoes. The trial of miles, miles of trials. How could they be expected to understand that?”

There is no doubt that persistence is a key requirement for distance runners, both in finishing a tough race and in completing the required training to get to the starting line in the first place.

Nobody succeeds as a runner overnight. It takes years of consistent training to get anywhere close to your best level. And in those years, you will experience setbacks, injury, illness, lack of motivation, and a host of other roadblocks that can derail your success.

More so than complicated training formulas or a willingness to thrash yourself in training, simple, dogged persistence over weeks and months and years will bring you to whatever level you are capable of achieving in running.

I think this is why there is so much respect and camaraderie among runners. There is an unspoken admiration, not for any particular achievement, but knowing that you’ve put in the work, dealt with setbacks, and stuck with it long enough to have achieved your goal. Regardless of whether that goal was running one mile or a hundred.

#1 Only Doing Low Heart Rate Training

One thing they don’t tell you about low heart rate training is that you shouldn’t do only low heart rate training.

When I did nothing but very slow, very low heart rate training, I didn’t improve much at all. Once a week you need to do some form of faster running, such as a tempo run or interval training. Doing just one faster run per week gives your training a tremendous boost without causing you to over train or get exhausted.

Low heart rate training plus one faster run per week turned out to be the secret sauce for me.

#2 Stressing About Exact Numbers

When I first tried low heart rate training, I was a slave to the numbers on my heart rate monitor.

If I accidentally went one or two beats over my planned heart rate, I immediately slowed down and worried that I’d ruined the workout. There’s no need for such precision. Sure, training 10 beats or more above your target heart rate for long stretches of your run doesn’t accomplish the purpose of your workout, but a few beats here or there doesn’t change the training effect.

Consistently training within 5 beats plus or minus of your target heart rate range is close enough to give you the benefits without changing the purpose of the run.

#3 Giving Up Too Soon

Low heart rate training is not a ‘get fit quick’ scheme.

It takes time and patience. The benefits won’t show themselves for several weeks at least. It took me several tried to learn the patience required to stick with it. If you do, the benefits are tremendous. Greater aerobic fitness, fewer injuries, and more enjoyment of the sport to name a few.

Stay strong, stick with the program and you’ll be a faster and healthier runner for it. Guaranteed.

Got any questions about low heart rate training or any other running topics? Let me know in the comments.

Of all the questions I get from runners, “How fast should my easy runs be?” is perhaps the most common. It’s understandable given that easy runs are runners’ most common type of workout.

The last several years have seen an explosion of tech devices and advice to help runners select the appropriate training paces.

Measuring heart rate, power output or even lactate levels can certainly be helpful if you’re into that sort of thing. Personally, I like to back up the information from my heart rate monitor with four decidedly non-techy indicators, which I think are just as accurate in terms of choosing the right pace for my easy runs.

For one thing, relying too much on tech has its drawbacks. It can turn some runners into data geeks and lead to an obsession with numbers. There’s nothing wrong with digging into the data, but I’ve known many runners (myself included) for whom obsessing about data adds stress and confusion to their training rather than providing clarity and insight.

There’s also the question of whether the data I’m getting is accurate. I’ve had times where I’m cruising along on an easy run, glance at my watch and it says my heart rate is 180bpm or more (130 would be normal for that effort), or other times I’m pushing the pace on a tempo run expecting the monitor to read 160 or more and it will read 83. Most of the time, I think the monitor is pretty accurate, but you never know.

Finally, regardless of the data, the most important thing is whether I can get my weekly mileage in, complete my workouts, and get through the week without getting injured and at an effort level where I’m enjoying my running rather than feeling like I’m participating in some form of athletic torture.

This leads me to the following low-tech indicators:

1. Energy Levels for My Key Workouts

The first indicator that my easy runs might be too fast is my energy levels during the harder workouts each week. In my case, I run hard twice a week, an interval or tempo workout mid-week, and a long run on the weekend. These are my two most important sessions of the week.

If I can’t hit my goal pace for my intervals or tempo runs or I can’t complete my long run, this is often a sign that I’m running too hard on the easy days.

While it’s normal to carry a certain level of fatigue from day to day, I want to arrive at my key sessions feeling rested and ready to attack the workout.

2. Motivation

The second indicator is somewhat related to the first. Usually, I’m a pretty motivated runner. I’ve been at it for over 40 years and rarely do I have days where I don’t look forward to getting out the door to run, especially when the weather is good.

I’ve learned over the years that when I find myself struggling to find the desire to get out for a run, especially if it lasts for several days in a row, it’s a sign I’m trying too hard. If I’m truly running easy on my easy days, I’m almost always rested enough to have the desire to get out for my daily run.

3. Concentration

If I’m cruising along at the right pace on my easy runs, it feels, maybe not effortless, but not something I have to work at or think about too much. Most of my easy runs are a great opportunity to let my mind wander and work out solutions to a problem, review my day, or plan for an upcoming event.

When I find myself having to focus a bit more and concentrate to maintain a given pace, that’s a clear sign I’m working too hard and it’s time to back off a little.

4. The Talk Test

Finally, here’s one last piece of tried-and-true advice we’ve been hearing since the running boom in the 70s. If my easy runs are in the right pace range, I’ll be able to comfortably carry on a conversation with my running mates.

Now, given that I mostly run alone, I do try to avoid actually talking to myself as I run (not always successfully!). Instead, I just make sure that my pace is comfortable enough to carry on a conversation if need be.

Keeping my easy runs in this pace range allows me to build my aerobic base while ensuring I have all the energy I need for my key workouts and being able to train consistently day after day without interruption.

I was not a top-level runner, but I won my share of races and had some performances I’m proud of, including 1:57 for 800m; 4:10 for 1500m in university and later in my 30s; 1:21:51 for the half marathon; 1:59:27 for 30km; and 3:00:10 for the marathon.

Here are a few key things I’ve learned.

1. Consistent training trumps a few big weeks.

Just about every runner with big goals has gone through a stage of dramatically increasing their training (usually at the beginning of the school cross-country season or perhaps in the early weeks of marathon prep). This invariably leads to feeling great at first, then hitting a wall and either getting injured or overtrained.

Some runners (me for one) repeat this cycle of overtraining followed by burnout, illness, or injury repeatedly. Eventually, I learned that backing off and finding a consistent, doable training plan led to longer-term, consistent progress. Took me a while though…

2. Increasing mileage is the surest way to improve … and the surest way to get injured.

Most of my periods of significant improvement came following periods of consistently increased mileage. The more you run, the better you run. Unfortunately, more mileage has also led to more injuries on many occasions.

So what’s a motivated and ambitious runner to do?

Listen to your body. You may have big goals in your head of hitting a certain mileage level, but if you feel increased soreness or undue fatigue, be prepared to back off and either take a few days of shorter runs or… gasp…a rest day. It won’t kill you, I promise.

And forget the so-called ‘10% rule’. It might be a rough guideline that someone once made up, but your body knows that. It will let you know if you’re overdoing things by increased soreness, fatigue, and general feelings of lethargy.

You might be able to increase by 20% or more early in a training cycle or when you’re coming back from a rest period. On the other hand, a 5% increase might be too much if you’re really challenging yourself with volume or doing a lot of speedwork. Ultimately, you have to adjust based on how you feel. You know your body best and you’ll have to figure out how to be your own coach on this one.

3. Interval training helps, but you don’t need as much as you might think.

When I was in high school, I ran three interval workouts most weeks. This led to rapid improvement, and also a rapid plateau in fitness. It also took a big toll in terms of energy levels and motivation.

Often I would run great races early in the season and then be mentally and physically exhausted by the time the important races came around later in the year.

As the season wore on, I’d start getting to the hard part of a race and instead of being motivated to push on and see how well I could do, I’d be thinking, “Oh God, not this again,” and mentally check out. For years I thought I was just not a mentally tough runner, but that wasn’t the case. I was just overtrained.

A funny thing happened when I started running fewer interval sessions. My finishing kick improved dramatically. Many runners feel like they need to work on speed all the time to have a great kick, but that isn’t the case.

Many times I’ve noticed that after a period of training for a longer race — such as a marathon or half marathon — and doing fewer and slower interval sessions, I’ll jump into a 5 or 10k race for fun and surprise myself with how much faster I can kick at the end despite not having run anything close to that pace in recent training.

This has happened enough times to know that it’s not a fluke. Your finishing kick has as much to do with how much you have left at the end of a race as your basic speed. While having a decent amount of basic speed certainly helps, hammering away at speedwork all the time isn’t necessary to have a great kick.

4. Simplicity is your friend.

Some coaches make running sound complicated. They pepper training discussions with all manner of scientific jargon and make it sound like it’s a difficult and tricky thing to train properly. Don’t fall for it. You’re not going to ruin your marathon preparation if you do a workout at 4.2 millimoles of lactate instead of 4.0 or do an easy run at 124 beats per minute instead of 130.

Over the years, I’ve trained with many different coaches and systems and they’ve all gotten me to roughly the same level of fitness. In the end, what matters is getting your butt out the door and running every day (or as often as possible).

Run easily most of the time, as much as you can without getting injured or sick of it, and do some race-specific training (intervals, tempos, hills, etc.) once or twice a week depending on your fitness and ability. This will get you to pretty much the best level you can.

Pro runners who are trying to shave that extra 0.01% off their times might benefit from a more personalized and detailed approach. Fair enough, but for the vast majority of us, building a big mileage base and then adding a judicious amount of speedwork is all the detail we need to get good results and years of enjoyment from the sport.

But let me back up a bit, maybe it’s best if I explain a little first …

Fartlek is a Swedish term that means “speed play” and was popularized by Swedish Olympian and master-coach Gosta Holmer. Holmer coached Gundar Hagg and Arne Andersson to within less than 2 seconds of the magical 4-minute mile as far back as the 1940s. Both set world mile records, with Hagg’s being the fastest at 4:01.4 until Roger Bannister’s recording-breaking run in 1954. Fartlek is a way of training that involves mixing in a variety of speeds within a single continuous run.

The original idea was to make speed training more enjoyable for runners. Instead of grinding away lap after lap on the track, they could go off on a relaxed run through the Swedish forests and essentially make up the pace changes as they went along. After an easy start to warm up, they might charge up a hill, run a few sprints, ease off on the pace for a while, or even add in 2–3km at a steady pace before easing back down. The potential variety was endless and helped keep runners from getting stale or overtrained.

Hagg and Andersson had tremendous success with it and soon others began to pick up the idea, including the legendary Arthur Lydiard, who encouraged his runners to use it as gentle speedwork during the base training season.

The beauty of fartlek is that you can do anything you want, from 100m sprints to a 5km tempo session all within a single run. Fartlek runs can improve your speed, aerobic endurance, leg strength, and pace judgment all in a single, relatively low-stress workout.

As time went on, coaches and runners began to add a more pre-defined plan to the workout, but fartlek is still conducted away from the track on footpaths, trails, and roads.

If you’re looking for ideas, here are three common fartlek sessions used by runners around the world today. Try them for yourself and see what you enjoy the most. And don’t be afraid to build your own fartlek session based on these ideas. Fartlek is supposed to be athlete-driven and spontaneous. The only rule is that there are no rules.

Make sure you warm up for each of these sessions, with 10–15 minutes of easy jogging and any dynamic stretching or drills you desire, and cool down afterwards with 5–10 minutes of easy jogging.

1. Minutes

The concept behind the “minutes” workout is simple.

Simply alternate one minute fast (approximately 5km race pace) with one minute at your regular easy run pace. You can start with as little as 5 reps and slowly build up to as many as 15 or 20.

The whole workout can be done as a continuous run, including warmup and cool down.

A sneaky good way to increase the intensity and benefit of this session is to ensure the recovery minutes stay at a decent pace. A great goal to aim for is to run the fast minutes at 5km race pace and the ‘slow’ minutes at roughly marathon pace. This teaches your body to clear lactate from your muscles while still running at a solid pace.

This will actually give you a better session than, say, running the fast minutes at mile pace and the slow ones at a very slow jog. It takes a little practice and pace judgment to get it right, but this is a very beneficial and enjoyable session when training for all events from 5km to the marathon.

2. Mona Fartlek

This workout was popularized by Australian marathoner Steve Moneghetti, the bronze medallist at the 1997 World Championships who had a lifetime marathon best of 2:08:14.

Mona fartlek is very similar to the minutes workout, in that you alternate fast sections around 5km race pace with equal time easier runs to recover. The difference is that there are varying intervals involved.

Mona fartlek goes as follows:

2 reps of 90 seconds fast, 90 seconds easy.

4 reps of 60 seconds fast, 60 seconds easy.

4 reps of 30 seconds fast, 30 seconds easy.

4 reps of 15 seconds fast, 15 seconds easy.

The workout is performed as a continuous run with a warmup and cooldown. The fast sections and recovery sections each add up to 10 minutes. A great way to run this session is to make it a continuous one-hour run, with the first 20 minutes as a warmup jog, 20 minutes for the workout itself, and a 20-minute cool-down jog.

The benefits of Mona fartlek are similar to that of the ‘minutes’ workout. Keeping the recovery sections at a steady pace provides for an excellent workout and benefits runners training for distances of 5km to the marathon.

3. Kenyan Fartlek

And finally, we get to the aforementioned Mr. Kipchoge, the former marathon world record holder, two-time Olympic marathon champion and the only human to have run under 2 hours for the marathon.

Kipchoge and most of the major Kenyan running camps meet weekly for a fartlek workout. These are usually spirited affairs with dozens of runners all starting together and charging off at the start. The strongest hang on till the end, the others do what they can and then either stop or drop off the pace significantly.

The typical Kenyan fartlek follows one of 3 patterns:

1 min fast, 1 minute jog— up to 25 reps.

2 minutes fast, 1 minute jog— up to 17 reps.

3 minutes fast, 1 minute jog — up to 13 reps.

I do not recommend starting with this many reps if you are mortal. Figure out what you can do to start and build up gradually until you reach a comfortable level. Keep in mind, this is not intended as a killer workout, it should be challenging, but you should finish knowing you could have done a couple more repetitions if needed.

The benefits of these sessions are similar to doing an interval session on the track, without the stress of trying to hit a particular time or pace. You run by feel at a level that leaves you pleasantly fatigued but not exhausted.

Give one or all of these sessions a try — you’ll be a faster and happier runner for it!

Please feel free to leave me a question or comment. With over 40 years of running experience, I’ve seen it all. What other topics would like me to cover? What problems can I help you with?

Cheers,

Dan.

And hey, there’s nothing wrong with that. If you’re that kind of runner (I was for most of my running life, still am to a degree), far be it from me to tell you to do otherwise.

However, as I age (I’m 56 and have run for closing in on 50 years now) I feel like maybe there’s a lesson that all of us hyper-motivated runners are missing.

Namely that running can actually be fun.

Not only that, but, wonder of wonders, perhaps by leaning into that notion of enjoying your running, we might actually get better results as well.

My former university track coach, Mike Dixon, took me aside once when I was struggling and frustrated with my lack of progress and said, “Look I just want to see you go back to having some fun with your running. When you do that, not only will you be happier, you’ll run better too.”

I didn’t believe him at the time, but now I’m convinced he was right. Here are three reasons why focusing on enjoying your running (especially for us, runners of … ahem … a certain age …) can also make you faster.

It Takes the Pressure Off

Running for fun takes the pressure off. Try running a race at less than full effort and just focus on enjoying the sights and getting around the course in one piece.

I used this strategy to great effect at the Ottawa Half Marathon in 2023. I was in decent shape but teetering on the brink of injury with a sore Achilles tendon. The night before the race, the courtyard below our hotel room was filled with a loud and obnoxious crowd who were several beers past their bedtime. This continued until 3:30 am. I hardly slept at all. To make matters worse, the next day dawned sunny and warm with temperatures approaching 25 degrees Celsius.

Convinced that my race was ruined, I decided just to try to get around the course at a comfortable pace without needing to bother the paramedics. I started slowly, waved to the crowd, high-fived the kids along the way, and generally just ran it at a comfortably hard training effort. I took in the sights, and enjoyed my slow tour of this beautiful city.

Then, as I passed the 10km mark, it occurred to me I wasn’t actually all that far behind my goal pace and I was feeling better than expected. My natural competitiveness started to kick in and I picked up the pace and started passing other runners and moving up through the field. Running is way more fun when you’re doing the passing instead of being passed. With 6 km to go, I was in full-on race mode and by the end hit my original goal time.

None of this would have happened had I gone into the race with the intention of running as fast as I could from the start. I’m convinced that had I stuck to my goal, I would’ve started falling off the pace early and probably struggled to finish. But by intentionally aiming to just have fun with it, I ended up running much better than I would’ve expected.

As a bonus — entering a race with the intention of running for fun is the perfect antidote to pre-race nerves.

Enjoyment Leads to Consistency

Consistency is the key to running faster.

Ask four-time Boston and New York City Marathon winner Bill Rogers. In his book Bill Rodgers’ Lifetime Running Plan: Definitive Programs for Runners of All Ages and Levels, Rogers speaks of the importance of consistency and how, in the end, his main goal is just to be consistent.

Consistency allows the small gains you get from your daily runs to compound and lead to significant fitness increases over time.

Yet most highly motivated runners fail the consistency test. We run too hard, too much, and too soon. Before long, we find ourselves on the sideline with an injury, on the couch due to exhaustion, or packing it in due to lack of motivation.

The key is to stop trying to do so much. Relax and enjoy the process.

Try new running routes, run with a friend who is slower than you but gives fascinating conversation. Leave your watch at home, even once a week. Maybe run a bit less than usual (sacrilege I know).

People like to do things that are fun, and if you truly enjoy the process, you’ll find yourself wanting to get out there and run more often. And from that will come better running.

Enjoyment Leads to Trying New Things

Finally, focusing on running for fun gives you the freedom to try new things.

Instead of hammering away at your marathon PR every spring and fall, maybe try focusing on 5k races for a bit. Or take a few months to see how fast you can run a mile. The speed you get from these little digressions can help make your marathon pace seem ridiculously easy when you decide to start your next build-up.

Or you could go the other way and try an ultra or trail race. Maybe you’ll learn something about yourself you never expected to find. Maybe you’re tougher than you ever imagined. You won’t know unless you try.

If you always run road races, why not find a track meet? There are masters age group track meets all over Canada and the US. There’s even a World Championship held each year!

Canadian masters multi-world record holder, Karla Del Grande, now 71 years young, has talked about how she returned to running in middle age and immediately tried road races because that’s what everyone else was doing. She even ran the 30km Around the Bay race in Hamilton before realizing she wasn’t enjoying the long distances.

She switched to sprinting — 100m, 200m, 400m, and even recently hurdle races because she enjoyed them more. Now she has a dozen world age group records to her name. She trusted her intuition and did what she enjoyed and her running blossomed as a result.

Not everyone will experience such a running renaissance, but trying different distances and disciplines often leads to a significant improvement in your target distance.

Keep in mind, most of us aren’t running world records or winning Olympic medals. Is it really justified to make running a stress-filled, exhausting means to an end when we could be out there running for fun and probably running better than ever as a result?