How To F̶i̶n̶d̶ Create Your Paces

IT WAS A hot summer afternoon, and I had just finished the 'First Speed Run', a guided run in the running app I was using. It included eight one-minute intervals interspersed with one minute of recovery. The virtual coach of that run prescribed different speeds, including a mile (1 600m) pace that was “fast”, a 10K pace which was “faster, but slower than a mile pace”, and the slowest of the three, a marathon pace. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't run at different paces. Over the course of my various flirtations, romances and relationships with running, I'd always seemed to move at only two speeds: run and walk.

- Donna Raskin, a senior health and fitness editor at Runner's World, used to spend her life sprinting up and down hills; noew she runs more slowly and consistently on the flats.

Disappointed and discouraged, I checked to see the name of the next guided run, hoping it wouldn't force me to struggle, yet again, with unrealistic speeds. The name? 'Find Your Pace'. Excited about this fortuitous opportunity, I pressed download and started this short workout, even though I had just struggled through the previous one.

Fortunately, Coach Cory, who led this particular guided run, never once asked me to check my Fitbit for metrics and pace. Instead, he only referred to the Rate of Perceived Exertion, a metric that's been around for decades, but that, to be honest, I'd ignored for all of that time. RPE is a purely subjective scale from 1 to 10. Typically, 1 refers to an effort level similar to sitting on your couch (i.e. no effort at all), and running at a 3 is a warm-up effort. On the other end of the spectrum is 10, an all-out sprint, a pace you can't sustain for more than half a minute.