Long run

by Willem van der Worp
(Woodstock, Canada)

I just started to run again after many years. I'm almost 70 years old in good shape. Almost 2 month's in, I run 3 times a week. I do cross training every session and a long run/walk on the weekend. Here is my question: How fast or slow should I do those run/walks. At this time I walk 3.6 miles hr. for an hr. Thanks Bill.

Nicole's reply:
Hi Bill, thanks for the great question.

If you've browsed my site you'll see that I'm a big fan of heart rate training and in particular MAF training. Lots of research shows that many people do the majority of their runs too fast and this leads to injury and slow progress.

In your case unless you are training for a particular race/event, I would do those run/walks at an easy pace where you can hold a conversation. If I'm out alone, I sing to myself and if I can do it without being out of breath then I know that I'm going at the right pace. As always listen to your body and if you feel like just walking that is great too. I hope that helps.