LS Research Project.

The key to running faster: lots of slower miles.

So reads the subtitle of Ed Eyestone's column in this month's Runner's World, summarizing the results of a recent study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. A group of runners preparing for cross-country championships ran wearing HR monitors for a six-month period. Their cumulative training time was then factored into three HR intensity zones.

Zone 1: Light intensity--<60% HRmax (<140 bpm)
Zone 2: Moderate intensity--60-85% HRmax (140-171)
Zone 3: High intensity-->85% HRmax (above 171)

As a group, this is how the runners spent their time:
Zone 1: 71% of their time
Zone 2: 21%
Zone 3: 8%

Here's the punchline:
The runners who had logged the most time training in the low-intensity zone produced the best race times.

That's a pretty darned interesting result.

Running at a pace that seems absurdly slow, over enough miles, prepares us for running at a demanding pace.

Here's Eyestone's take on it:

The reason why low-intensity running yields such great dividends is that it is
aerobic conditioning at its best: It improves heart and lung function while it
puts less stress on the ligaments and tendons that are vulnerable to injury at
higher intensities.

In another time of my life I studied the paradoxes of intimacy in human relationships. Often moving a relationship ahead, for instance, means slowing down and letting things ripen.

I'm now discovering one of the paradoxes of running: to go faster, spend more time going slower.

Who'da thunk?