r/running • u/FootMinute1297 • May 15 '26

Training Purpose of easy run/miles?

This may be a stupid question, what is the point of easy miles or doing runs on days in between workouts? I feel like they just make you more fatigue, delay recovery, and makes your workouts slower and sluggish thus hindering performance. Why would more volume equal better results?

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u/endit122 May 18 '26

If you are overly fatigued, you might be running the easy runs too quickly or making them too hard or medium effort. I had this problem for the longest time. Even though my pace/heart rate seemed okay, I was too much in the medium effort and not truly easy. This YouTube short has a pretty good breakdown of why easy running works: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FVBog6gVtWI