How to Use the 80/20 Rule for Running
Runners often adhere to the 80/20 rule when organizing their training, but this has nothing to do with the Pareto principle of the same name. Let’s talk about where the idea of 80/20 came from, how to implement it, and when training according to this principle is useful and when it is not.
What is the 80/20 rule for running?
In short, the idea is that 80% of your running should be low intensity and only 20% should be moderate to high intensity. Recreational runners (like you and me) often run around a 50/50 split. The 80/20 rule suggests that we should take some of those faster runs and slow the heck down to achieve better training balance.
The 80/20 rule was popularized in Matt Fitzgerald’s 2014 book , 80/20 Running . Fitzgerald, in turn, based his recommendations on research by Steven Seiler , who found that elite athletes in a variety of endurance sports, including running, cycling and cross-country skiing, performed about 80% of their training at an intensity much less than in ordinary athletes. will they ever be used in racing. In other words: to train your body to move fast, you will have to run many miles at a slow speed. This is similar to the idea of “polarized learning,” which means you stick to extremes—either working very easy or very hard, rather than spending a lot of time in between.
Note that 80/20 here only refers to how you split your workouts: 80% easy and 20% hard. This is not the Pareto principle, which says that 80% of your results come from 20% of your… whatever. (80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers, 80% of your needs are met by 20% of the things you own , etc.) In running there is really only one outcome – your time in the race – so the question is: how to divide the learning time. 80% easy and 20% hard is the balance that Fitzgerald and Seidler say will allow you to perform better in races.
What is considered low intensity for 80%?
If you ‘ve been paying attention to the “zone 2” trend , you’re probably thinking that you should be in zone 2 ( perhaps 60-70% of your maximum heart rate) for 80% of your workout. And guess what? This will get you close enough. Deal with it.
But the definitions more commonly used in scientific research are based on more than just heart rate. Some of them use indicators that we cannot easily measure ourselves – try to keep your blood lactate levels below 2 millimoles per liter.
What is even more useful (and still supported by research) is to use VT1, the “first ventilatory threshold.” It’s a fancy word for what old heads know as the “talk test.” If you can continue a conversation without taking extra breaths in the middle of a sentence, you are below VT1. This is what 80% of your training should be.
I know this isn’t enough information for those of you more into data, so I’ll note that Fitzgerald reported in his book that this level is often in the range of 77% to 79% of the elite’s maximum heart rate. The exact number can vary from person to person, and heart rate readings are never completely objective as they can be affected by heat and stress, among other things. But if I check my gut feeling, 77% of my own known and tested max puts me around 153, which is surprisingly well in line with what I consider my easy pace – I try to stay in the low 150s for my easy runs.
Summarizing this information, it turns out that we can go a little above “zone 2” and still maintain the right intensity for 80% of our 80/20 run – as long as it actually feels easy. If you want, you can set your zones on your running watch so that you have a zone that maxes out at 77% or so. (It might even make more sense for it to be zone 3 rather than zone 2.)
How to train using the 80/20 rule
Before we can categorize our training, we need to decide how we measure it. Do we aim for 80% of our training to be easy runs? 80% of our miles? 80% of our total training time?
Fitzgerald in his book counted minutes at light, moderate and heavy intensity levels. But if you’re an interval runner, he considers the intervals and the recovery between them part of your more intense work. (However, recovery time after these intervals will be considered low intensity.)
So you can do the same. This will also help you to think correctly in your miles or sessions. If you do one hard run for every four easy ones, you’re still doing 80/20 (assuming those runs are about the same mileage).
How important is it to stick to the 80/20 rule?
Even though it’s called a “rule”, you don’t have to follow it. This is just one way of training that is consistent with what many elite athletes do. There have also been studies that show that recreational runners can benefit, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only way to train.
Seidler, the researcher, even told Fitzgerald, the author, that if he could only train twice a week, he would do both heavier and lighter work in both sessions . A study of competitive recreational runners found that the 77/23 and 46/54 ratios resulted in small improvements in 10K times, and the difference between groups was not statistically significant. However, these people had a 10K (that’s a 6.2 mile race) with 40 minutes to go, so they started quite quickly compared to many new runners.
Meanwhile, there is plenty of other research showing that recreational runners can improve their performance with almost any type of training, and that increasing total mileage (measured in miles per week) is beneficial for improving fitness and race times.
Bottom line
If you’re a runner with a lot of room for improvement (which includes many of us beginner, intermediate, and regular runners), you don’t necessarily need to slow down 80% of your runs to a crawl. You can use whatever conversational pace suits you, even if your watch says it’s zone 3. And since increasing mileage is usually part of improving as a runner, it might make sense to consider adding easy miles rather than increasing your run. miles in the lungs.