Want to run faster? Slow down then!

It doesn't make sense but that's what the science says. I talk to Matt Fitzgerald, bestselling author of 80/20 Running about why everyday citizen runners need to run slow to run faster.

Whether you’re talking about ancient, barefooted South Americans running further than Courtney Dauwalter on a daily basis or the Japanese niko niko jogging method of focusing on smiling while running, as pioneered by Hiroaki Tanaka, ideas about running slowly have always persisted.

In 2016 Matt Fitzgerald’s 80/20 Running was released. A best-seller then and still no.13 in the charts, it’s an insightful and incisive guide to using the science of slowing down as a method for reaching your peak running performance.

“Run Stronger and Race Faster By Training Slower,” it says. It’s counter-intuitive but hear me (him) out.

Fitzgerald’s book worked off an observation by Dr Stephen Seiler - an American sports scientist who moved to Norway to study elite athletes and found that just 20% of their training was at a high intensity. 80% of their runs were at a low intensity. Nothing in the middle.

Now, as millions more runners are regularly pulling on their shoes following the pandemic-led running boom…