By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

Talking about our great workouts and spectacular results is a favorite topic of runners’ conversation. “Johnny’s mile repeats are spot on for a 5K PR!”, “Jimmy is crushing his track workouts.”, “Helen swears by her Fartlek sessions.” So, why am I not doing any of this stuff? Why does my coach have me doing boring stuff?

If you are training for long-distance running, your base is the key. The aerobic base, that is. A skyscraper stands on a solid footing for the same reason the pyramids have stood on their wide bases for 4500 years. They both have a solid foundation to bear the load. The same principle applies to a long-distance runner. Your aerobic base is the foundation of your running. It’s what every training block builds upon, and what ultimately supports your ability to perform. What good comes from running 400 meters in 62 seconds if that is all you can hold, but you are racing a 5K?

To understand the importance of an aerobic base for a long-distance runner, know that even the fittest and fastest Kenyan elite runner runs a marathon 99% aerobically. Even Olympic 5000-meter champions require about a 90% aerobic effort to compete at that level. You’ll likely never be there, but this doesn’t preclude you from the reality of human physiology.

In his “Guide to Coaching”, Coach Steve Magness states: “We have a temptation to want to skip to the ‘cool, sexy’ stuff. It’s boring to do endless easy runs or to spend hours working on the starting position in the sprints. But the ‘boring’ work serves as our foundation. We need a firm understanding of the basics before we move on to the next step. And once we have moved on, we must continually go back to the basics to ensure that they are ingrained.”

Is this clear enough?

The Boring Stuff

It is counterintuitive to accept that you must run slow so you can run fast. Yet this is one of those things you must accept, trust the science, and move forward with if you aspire to become a successful long-distance runner.

Training at slower paces is the foundation of endurance because, among other things, it enhances mitochondrial density (improving oxygen delivery to the muscles), enhances capillary development, and increases fat utilization as fuel, which will make you a more efficient athlete. Low-intensity training also stimulates aerobic enzymes without overstressing the body, allowing more consistent training and better recovery. Over time, these physiological improvements will enable you to maintain faster paces with less effort.

Structured properly within your training, slow runs support speed, stamina and contribute to a better race-day performance. And this takes time. It doesn’t happen by running slow for a week or a month. If you trust the process and keep a written record of your workouts, before you know it, you will be running longer, easier and faster with the same effort. What once was your pushing pace, will now be your warmup pace.

The Sexy Stuff

Now that you have a strong base, we build on it.

I often compare runners with F1 engines. They can do amazing things, but they require a lot of work, constant modifications and adjustments. The engine is the base, which is solid, but it can’t perform at the expected level without testing, tweaking and failures.

Short intervals, long intervals, Fartlek, mile-repeats, track, threshold, VO2Max, progressions, and so many more are part of the arsenal of workouts you have at your disposal to become a faster runner. These workouts will leave you pleasantly exhausted, provide you with that exhilarating feeling we have learned to love, and get you to enjoy the sweets of a runner’s high.

But be warned. These should be just a fraction of your workouts. You shouldn’t do them day after day after day just because you built a solid base. Maintaining and solidifying the base is a lifetime pursuit. The base of the Eiffel Tower has been constantly maintained since 1889, and thus, still stands strong.

Speed work is essential to becoming a faster runner, but easy recovery runs in between hard workouts and the ubiquitous long run should not be skipped. It should all be in balance.

So, next time your coach asks you to slow down, be patient, or play the long game, understand he/she is not doing so because he/she is mean. There are proven scientific and physiological reasons behind it. So, embrace the boring stuff and become a better, faster runner.

Can you share your slow running experience in the comment box below?