“One of the main benefits of easy running is being able to add variety into your running schedule,” Dr Sekely says. “You will have easy runs and you’ll have hard runs; running every run easy might have a place in rehab but if you’re training for something, it’s going to really hard to run those faster runs hard if you’re not running those easy runs easy!”

Simply put, Dr Sekely warns that you can’t reach your full potential if you’re running hard every day. “The easy runs serve as miles under our legs, time on our feet which is great, but you can get a lot faster by slowing down so you can tap into that speed and potential on those scheduled hard runs.”

So, what does an ‘easy’ run actually mean? As with everything in running, it’s all about your perceived energy exertion – what feels easy to you. Your easy run might be someone else’s flat out race pace. You want to be working up to 4/10 of your maximum exertion; if you run 1km in five minutes, your easy run pace should see you covering 1km in six or seven minutes. It’s slow but that doesn’t mean it’s boring or not worth doing.

Running that much slower means that you’ve got a chance to correct your form – something we don’t have the brain power to do when we’re going at full pelt. You can retract your shoulders, pick your feet up, shorten your stride, enjoy the scenes around you, breathe easier.

You’re probably running too fast, too often – here’s why you need to slow down