91. Polarized Training: Easy Days Easy & Hard Days Hard

Polarized training may sound like a fancy word, but it is the way we should all be training to reach our potential in the sport of distance running. Have you ever heard of the 80/20 principle? We want to keep 80% of your weekly mileage EASY then the remaining 20% should be reserved for harder efforts. This principle of keeping the hard days HARD and the easy days easy stems from the growth formula of stress + rest = growth. If you are not able to fully recover from the hard running workouts with nice rest/easy running days, you will not be able to grow or improve as a runner. We want to train smart & get the most out of our daily effort. This is why it is important to make sure our training is really polarized. Polarized means making sure we keep the hard days HARD and keeping the easy days truly easy. It is like the ying and yang. You need to have to rest to offset the stress. When was the first time you were introduced to easy running vs harder running efforts? How do distance runners get caught up in the gray zone? What exactly is the gray zone for paces? What is YOUR gray zone? Is there a such thing as going too slow? Should you be able to tell by someones pace weather it was a workout day vs an easy day? Workout day pace vs easy day pace Workout day HR vs easy day HR Easy running for everyone? Should some people cross train? What if your HR is always too high on easy days? What if I am not doing workouts? Can I go faster on my easy days? How do you get people to buy into this methodology? Will this look different for everyone? IE- your easy pace looks like most people’s hard paceS? Do you think as you get faster, you cannot get away with doing non-polarized training?