Why Running Slower Helps You Run Faster

In this episode of the Loving Every Stride podcast, host Paul Laslett reveals one of the biggest secrets to speeding up your run, as well as making it more fun.

One of the most important ways to boost your energy is to slow down certain runs. Varying the speed can train your muscles much more effectively, as Paul can testify after training with elite Kenyan runners. It's one of the best lessons you'll ever learn.

So tune in and get inspired!

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Paul Laslett can be found here:
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Marie Droniou-Bordry can be found here:
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Download your running pace calculator here:
https://www.brightsidept.com/running-faster-formula

Transcript

Paul Laslett  0:02  
Welcome to loving every stride the podcast that will help make your running easier. Brought to you by ex national athlete and UK record holder Paul glaslyn powered by the bright side pte community. For more information and access to your very own running faster formula, which will make your running easier. Click on the link in the show notes, enjoy the show and see you on the bright

Paul Laslett  0:26  
side. And welcome to this podcast. So we want to help you make your running feel easier. Now, one of the ways you can do that one of the many, many, many, many ways you can do that is to train smarter. Now, you might have seen this in various other places you might read about like different ways of training. But when I talk about training smarter, I'm I want to basically help you solve some problems in this podcast today. So what happens most of the time from a lot of the runners, the Marine myself help is you start running, maybe you've done the count to 5k. And you're running five K's now, which is awesome, you never thought you would be able to run for 5k without stopping. But now you can. And you see some awesome improvements, like you've gone from not being able to run to being able to run 5k. Or maybe you've just been running five K's and you're slowly slowly get some improvements. But then what happens? What happens when you stop seeing those improvements, you know, you start plateauing. And you're not really sure why, because what you were doing before was working. But for some crazy reason we stopped working. Now, I want to help you understand why that is happening. There can be quite a few reasons behind it. But most of the time, from what what we've seen over the years, is that most people will run at one speed more or less all of the time. So if you're running at one speed more or less all the time, what will happen is like driving your car in third gear all the time, okay? Sooner or later, third gear is going to be knackered, okay, you're going to wear that gear out, and it's not going to work in the same way. Another analogy I like to use is savings pots. So imagine you had four different savings pots in your bank, okay, but you only ever used one of them. And you kept just taking money out of that account over and over and over and over again. Eventually, you're going to go into debt. That is exactly what happens when you are running at the same speeds over and over and over again, you're taking your pot of energy out of that one system at event you'll get away with for so long that eventually but you're in debt and you don't even know it yet. Oh, that rhymes. So what what I want you to try and understand is that in order to prevent the plateau, in order to kind of keep enjoying the running and keep seeing some progress, what you need to do to try and different speeds, you need to be delving into those different energy pots, you need to make sure that you're topping up those energy systems and the savings that you're using. Okay? And also, if you're running at the same speed more or less over and over again, you're going to increase the chance of getting injured. Why why why am I here you ask? I'll tell you why you will increase the risk of getting injured purely because you're using the muscles in the same way over and over again, your joints, your tendons, your ligaments, your muscles, everything is getting used in the same range of movement, the same impact again and again and again. And before you know it, boss, you've got that repetitive strain injury. Also, if you're running more or less at the same speed all the time and it's uncomfortable, and you're finished and think Oh my Lord, how will I ever be able to do that run? How can I ever keep going at that? Oh, well I want to do is stop, then you are constantly stressing your body and you're not giving it the chance to recover. So we want to get some purpose behind your running. So you know exactly what speeds to run out why you're running at those speeds. So you own every single running. Guess what? When you start doing that You will love every single stride that you take when you're on. And that's what we want for you. We want you to love it, we want you to absolutely relish and enjoy every step that you're taking with your running. So what's the solution? Paul? Hey, this is what you're asking, how do you train smarter? What do you do so there are different energy systems that you can use, I don't want to get all sciency. And kind of like, wow, you've got zone one where you need to be in this zone. You know, it doesn't have to be as complicated as that, all you really need to understand is the, if you want your body to have energy, you can't keep taking from it, you need to let it recover. So that can be rest days, or that can be changing the intensity in the speeds that you run. So you got to do what we would call some recovery running and that recovery money should feel super, super, super easy. It should be set to get your strivers PBS forget what people think, oh, god Joe's got out for a run, these run a lot slower than usual. Don't worry about it, Joe, you're alright, mate. That's what you need to be doing. You run slow now, so that you can run fast when you need to. And you've got to think when you do a slow run, what you're doing in that run, you are topping up your energy system, you are topping up that savings account, you're putting money back into your energy stores, so that you can use it later, rather than taking from it. So next time you go out for a run, run slow, really slow. Okay. And if you want to know exactly how slow to run, then you need to get our running faster formula, which you can get in the show notes that will tell you exactly how fast you should run, and how to structure your week. So go grab that. Okay, once you've finished listening to this podcast, in terms of the intensities and distances to cover, I want to give you a few things to consider a few things to think about. So the more intense something is ie the harder is, the shorter it should be. So if you want to increase your distance, or you want to run further, then obviously the intensity of what you're doing needs to come down. So there should be a big difference between doing a faster run for a shorter period of time, in terms of your pace, and then a longer run, obviously, for a longer period of time, but you want to make sure then the speeds are dramatically different. One is a lot more intense, and one is a lot slower. So that slow, easy run is something that people will struggle to do. But when we tell clients, you've got to slow down what but that feels really hard to do. Well, it feels hard to do. Because you're working a different energy system,

Paul Laslett  8:00  
it feels hard to do because you're working your muscles in a different way. But give it seven days, give it 14 days of doing that and practicing that you will be amazed at how good you feel doing it. And you know, what, if you finish your run, and you think, yeah, you know what, I could have kept going there, that fell fantastic, then you're gonna have a really, really positive experiences running and you want to get out again and do something rather than finishing and thinking, Oh, that always feels so hard, running so hard, then you start telling yourself you're rubbish at it, but you're not, you're just not training in the smartest way that you can. So what we found is that there are guys and girls that are following our running faster formula that are following our courses at the moment, they have so much purpose behind what they're doing, because they understand the speeds they need to run and why they're running slower or why they've got to run a little bit quicker and how they're doing it. So we get the intensity of what you're doing. And we mix that intensity through out the week, so that you're not overloading one energy system, you're not just using one bank account all the time and never ever topping it back up again. Okay, so I hope I really, really hope that makes make some sense to you. So the other thing to kind of think about with this is you want to enjoy your running. Okay, so that always feels hard, you're not going to enjoy it. But if it feels hard once or twice in a week and you understand it should feel hard. That's fine. But if you're thinking, oh my god, another 5k. And it feels really hard and chances are you're running it too quickly. For that point in the week. I'll tell you a little story. I like to tell many many, many years ago, I was lucky enough to be on a warm weather training camp in Portugal and the Kenyan athletics team were there at the time. They were amazing like how they ran and then Race was just phenomenal. Ended up stalking them a little bit to be honest and watch them, watch them train. And it was like, when it's like watching theater, it was like, it was just it looked magical in terms of how they were moving. got chatting to a few of the few of the athletes and they say yeah, no, let's just chat some more. Now I'd love to chat to you guys more about your training and see what you're doing. And we ended up going for a run the next day, being a few of the other British lads. After about a couple of minutes, we looked over our shoulders, and we had dropped these Kenyan athletes and we were like our mind. We are also we are smashing these Kenyans today, and the Kenyans are shying away, you're going, why are you? What are you doing? And they're like, you're not recovering. Okay, so we were like, well, we're not running that fast. And then next day, or a few days later, when we got on the track, obviously, they absolutely destroyed us, they took us apart. And it kind of got me thinking like, hang about what was going on it even as no professional runner, we were running our EZ running too quick. So we couldn't get the same quality out of ourselves. When when we wanted to run a bit faster load a load of research and very lucky to have lots of amazing coaches coach me over the years, making sure that I was running at the right speeds at the right times, meant that I had purpose behind what I was doing, I was enjoying what I was doing. But my ultimately my PB started to fall. Because I was using different energy systems, I was enabling my body to recover. Okay, so I had purpose behind what I was doing. And obviously, I loved my running again. And that's what we want for you guys. Okay, we want you to love your running because it is it's a joy, it's a it's an absolute pleasure, it's a gift that we've been given that we can all go out and run. If you can run a 5k right now in 35 minutes. And that's a struggle, then when you recover, you need to be running 3839 minutes. And that's fine, as long as you're doing the right things in between to make sure you're making progress, okay, and that's where the running faster formula comes in. And that's where, obviously, our courses come in, and help give you that purpose help give you that structure, as well. And ultimately, we want you to thoroughly love and enjoy your running. So you've got to slow down to go faster. And you've probably heard that a lot before. But I hope the analogies that I've used today has really kind of made you stop and think and I really want you to try running slower, so that you finish that run and you think that was lovely.

Paul Laslett  12:43  
I enjoyed it. Ah, what a pleasure that run was because I wasn't running it too quick. And of course, you're gonna have runs where maybe you're doing some intervals, or you're doing some tempo work, or something like that, where Yeah, it's gonna feel uncomfortable, but at least you know, it should do. Rather than just going out for a run and thinking, Boy, it's always feeling hard when it's feeling hard, because you're not running at the right speeds, slew it down. Okay, and that's absolutely fine to run things slower. I would love I love you to go out and run slower, and have a great experience with it. That would be phenomenal. Now, I want to tell you a little story about someone that has done this now, this particular client of ours, her five case slow run is now the same pace as her best effort was before starting one of our courses. I'm going to say that again. So that kind of sinks in her five case slow, easy recovery run is now the same pace, as their best effort was before starting our courses. So she can now recover easily at the speed she used to be able to leg it at. Okay, so how did this happen? Great question. First of all, she ran slow. Okay, so she started building her aerobic system up, she started putting money into savings account of energy, so she could take it out. She changed how she trained, she got smarter. She didn't just go in and run all the time at the same speed to see what she could do. She did some interval training. She did some tempo work and she learned how to do that she understood how that felt and why it felt in certain ways. She made sure that she was running more or less at the guides on the running faster formula that we want you to get your hands on. And over time I think in our first first month she was almost two minutes quicker when she did a time trial at the end of the month because she wasn't time traveling every week like she was before. She wasn't smashing herself every Saturday apart grand to try and beat her previous Saturday. If you're constantly doing that. You're always taking energy out have that energy system or that savings, rather than you're not giving yourself time to put it back in. So we gave her body time to build her energy system up. And we worked on the speed, we made sure that she had ample recovery. And she was doing the sessions in the right way to make sure that she was executing the training to maximize the end result. Because here's the thing, guys, if you're going out and running, and you're spending that time, you might as well do things in the right way. Okay, I'm gonna say that, again, if you're gonna go out and run, you might as well spend that time doing the most efficient thing and training in the most efficient way. So that you you maximize your results. Okay, makes sense, doesn't it? Surely, you're going to spend time doing something, let's do it right.

Paul Laslett  15:53  
Now, let's do it properly. And let's have some fun with it in the process, let's have some great experience with it in the process, okay, so that can happen to you, too, that you can do this, you know, you just got to get that right structure in place, get the right speeds going, work those different interests and not be scared to run slower, you're not going to get less fit from running slower. As long as you aren't doing the right things each week, you will get quicker, we have 100%, we've had 100% record on our courses, I think we've had about 170 people go through them now in the last nine months. Everybody without fail has improved. And for me, I love seeing that because they love their running again. You know, they're not banging their head against a brick wall going on, man, I'm not getting any quicker. But I'm trying so hard, you know. So we want that for you too. So I'm going to give you a little a little summary of things I want you to think about. Don't be scared to go slow. Why are you going slower? Answer this question out loud, say I'm going slower. So I can build my energy systems up, I'm going slower, so I allow my body to recover. So that when it's time to run fast, I have more energy. Okay, having structure behind what you do having purpose means that you have more permission to run slower. So if you know that you're going to do a harder session, say on the first day, okay, and that's going to be a session where you're going to, you're going to work quite hard on that session, you know, it doesn't make sense to then try and do something really fast a few days before, because you're still going to be tired going into that session. Right? Okay, so having that structure, having that purpose is going to help that. So the biggest takeaway we can give you from this episode of loving every stride is you got to run slower, to run faster, the biggest challenge we see with people who we start helping and coaching is to get them to slow up. And I really, really hope the this podcast today has given you some understanding about why you need to go slower. And the understanding of having purpose behind the drums, you know, when you go out and run right? Today is a recovery run, I can just go and you're really, really easy. That's brilliant News, I'm gonna love this, and maybe throw in a few strides at the end of the end of the run was trying to hear you say, I'm going to tell you what strides are, is basically you're running around about 100 meters more or less as fast as you can. And then you have a slow walk back after each run. So why did you do that? You do that because you're practicing running quicker, and they're fun. They're so much fun to run fast. It should be the quickest thing you do every week. And if you're practicing that, moving quicker, your brain is having to send messages to your muscles to go, oh, I need to do this need to do this. Everything happens a lot quicker than when you come back to the slower staff. The messages that come from your brain, to your muscles to tell them what to do are clearer. They're slower, they've got more time to get the message across. They're not as stressed out. Okay, so, homework, guys, go and do an easy, slow run, and enjoy it. Enjoy every stride that you take on that run. I would love to know how you got on with this. You know, it's all well and good me giving you some advice, but is it helping? How would I know it's helping you? So please just leave a comment in the show notes and just let us know whether you run easier and you've run slower and you enjoyed it. If you find it hard. Did you find it easier? If you've got any questions around that? Then post your question in the show notes as well and I can answer them in the next podcast for you. I really hope this podcast has helped give you some insight, giving you permission to run slowly And I really, really hope that you've enjoyed listening to this tune in for the next one, and we'll speak to you soon. Thank you for listening to loving every stripe. If like us you absolutely love running, we'd love to have you in our community and help make your running faster. You can join our Facebook group and get your very own running faster formula by visiting the link in the show notes and there will be happy days ahead. Please also remember to subscribe and review so we can spread our love for running. Thank you for listening and we will see you on the bright side.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai