Types of Runs: Every Type of Run and It's Benefits

Every solid training plan is compromised of a few different types of runs. This is to help add variation to your weeks and ensure you become fitter and faster by the end of the plan. While you’ve probably heard about some of the basic types of runs like long runs and recovery jogs, Your pace for your tempos, progressions, and fartleks that also contribute to your success.

If you’re not sure what each type of run entails and the benefits you gain from them (and therefore, which ones you make sure you’re checking off each week!), we created a brief breakdown of all the different run variations below. Use this guide to help inform your training and get the most out of each of your workouts.

1. Long Runs

As the name implies, long runs are the longest runs on your weekly schedule, but the actual distance will vary depending on what race you have on your schedule. For example, if you’re fast, so you can finish faster, your longest run might be three miles to start, but if you’re training for a marathon, workouts on a treadmill.

Your pace for your long run will also vary depending on your fitness level and goals. But generally speaking, you should conquer long runs at a conversational pace, meaning you could chat with your running buddy the entire time and breathe naturally.

→Benefits of Long Runs

These runs will help improve you aerobic fitness and endurance, helping you become a more efficient runner. You will strengthen your slow-twitch muscle fibers, which help stave off fatigue in the later miles of a run or race.

2. Recovery Runs

Recovery runs, also known as easy runs, should also involve your conversational pace. These runs serve as an important part of any training plan because they help your body recover from hard runs (hence the name!). The tricky part is finding your ideal pace, as many runners tend to clock these workouts a little too fast.

Essentially, a recovery run is short in duration and practiced at a low intensity when compared to other workouts. This means you should be running at less than 70 percent of your max heart rate.

→Benefits of Recovery Runs

These types of runs improve cardiovascular and muscular development, meaning they will help boost overall fitness levels and play a big factor in what allows runners to safely increase mileage week after week—and weekly mileage is crucial for boosting endurance.

3. Hill Repeats

Hill repeats involve running uphill, rep after rep, so you’re going to really work your leg muscles during this type of run. If there aren’t any hills in your area, don’t worry, you can still practice these types of workouts on a treadmill.

These workouts are meant to challenge you, but that doesn’t mean you have to sprint them. Again, your goals and fitness level will determine the speed at which you tackle hills, but you want to learn to maintain your pace through the top of the hill, rather than dying out halfway through.

→Benefits of Hill Repeats

Hill repeats giving you confidence you can hit your goal pace on race day strength Races - Places running economy, which means you’ll be able to run more efficiently.

4. Interval Runs

Intervals are short, intense efforts followed by equal or slightly longer recovery time. For example, after a warmup, run two minutes at a hard effort, followed by two to three minutes of easy jogging or walking to catch your breath. It might also mean running 400 meters, followed by walking or jogging 200 meters.

Most often, you’ll perform the work periods of interval workouts at an effort that’s in the red (think: breathing heavily, unable to hold a conversation, and counting the seconds until you can stop). It should be a controlled, fast effort followed by a truly easy jog or walk.

The secret to interval success is in the recovery, as patience and discipline while you’re running easy allows you to run the next interval strong and finish the entire workout fatigued but not completely spent. Another key to conquering intervals: not starting the first one out so fast that you fade by the last repeat.

→Benefits of Interval Runs

You’ll gain improved running form training for a marathon, motivation, and possibly fat-burning. Interval runs are truly key to running faster, too.

Another major benefit of interval runs, especially when done at max effort? An in your area, don’t worry, you can still practice these types of.

5. Tempo Runs

Tempo runs are like an Oreo cookie, with the warmup and cooldown as the cookie, and a run at an effort that’s equal to—or slightly above—your anaerobic threshold (the point at which your body has to switch to generating energy without sufficient oxygen) as the filling. This is the effort level just outside your comfort zone; you can hear your breathing, but you’re not gasping for air.

If you can talk easily, you’re not in the tempo zone, and if you can’t talk at all, you’re above the zone. It should be at an effort somewhere in the middle, a “comfortably hard” effort that allows you to talk in broken words and hold that effort for at least 20 minutes.

Pace isn’t always an effective means for running a tempo workout, as there are many variables that can affect pace including heat, wind, fatigue, and terrain. So focus more on the effort you’re experiencing and try to hold it steady through the entire run.

You will A Cruise Control for Running Runner’s World training plans, particularly those focused on helping you break a time barrier. In this case, the tempo efforts are usually slightly faster than your goal pace for the race when it comes to a half or full marathon and slightly slower than goal pace for a race like the 5K. And you’ll often see them sandwiched into long runs.

→Benefits of Tempo Runs

Tempo runs help to increase lactate threshold so you can run faster at easier effort levels. They also improve focus, race simulation, and mental strength, Everything You Need to Know About Running Hills.

6. Threshold Runs

Tempo runs and threshold runs often get lumped together. You may run tempos right around your lactate threshold pace—the point at which your body can no longer clear lactate (a byproduct of exercise) and you fatigue—but threshold training is a little more precise, and often a little more intense.

In many cases, you’ll do tempo runs based on feel, but threshold runs typically require more planning, with you figuring out your speed at lactate threshold. Once you have that pace, you can incorporate it into longer interval workouts and even mixed into quality long runs.

→Benefits of Threshold Runs

Just like tempos, threshold runs help to raise the ceiling on your lactate threshold level, allowing you to run at a faster pace for a longer period of time. They also train you mentally to get comfortable with being uncomfortable—a skill you’ll need for earning a race-day PR.

7. Progression Runs

Progression runs progressively get faster throughout the run. As long as you abide by this rule, you can structure your workout however you like. This means even if you end at a pace five seconds faster than when you started, it still qualifies as a progression run.

You also don’t have to focus solely on your running pace for a progression run—tracking your perceived effort workouts on a treadmill.

Most often, progression runs are done at a tempo effort (“comfortably hard”) or pace. But it’s mostly about not starting out too fast, so you can finish faster.

→Benefits of Progression Runs

In addition to helping you run faster for longer and improving your confidence for race day, the biggest benefit of progression runs is learning pacing. Many runners start out too fast in races, and the progression run can help you avoid that by teaching you to control pace.

8. Fartlek Runs

Fartleks are not only fun to say out loud, but they’re fun to run. Fartlek is the Swedish word for “speed play,” and that is exactly what this type of run is all about. Unlike tempo and more structured interval work, fartlek is unstructured and alternates between moderate to hard efforts with easy efforts throughout.

After a warmup, you play with speed by running at faster efforts for short periods of time (to that tree, to the sign) followed by easy-effort running to recover. It’s fun in a group setting as you can alternate the leader and mix up the pace and time. And in doing so, you reap the mental benefits of being pushed by your buddies through an unpredictable workout.

If you’re running solo, you can use it as a playful way to pass the time by targeting random markers as the finish line for the hard efforts. The goal is to keep it free-flowing so you’re untethered to the watch or a plan, and to run at harder efforts but not a specific pace.