Starting to run: why the beginning should be slower than it feels
Running needs little equipment and no fixed place — which makes it accessible. At the same time, every step puts a multiple of body weight through joints and tendons, and those structures adapt more slowly than heart and lungs. That mismatch produces the most common beginner’s error.
Two systems, two speeds
When starting out, endurance performance often improves faster than expected. Heart, circulation and metabolism respond quickly; after a few weeks the same route feels markedly easier.
Tendons, ligaments, bone and cartilage do not follow that pace. Their adaptation runs over months, because their metabolism is slower and there are fewer blood vessels. They need the loading to become more load-bearing — but in smaller steps.
That explains the typical pattern: after some weeks running feels good, volume rises, and shortly afterwards a structure that could not keep up with the rate of increase makes itself known. The error then lies not in the day of the complaint but in the weeks before.
Walking as part of training
The most common entry alternates running and walking sections. That is not a stepping stone to “real” running but a method with its own logic: walking sections lower peak loading without shortening total duration.
Progress comes from making running sections longer and walking sections shorter — not from raising the pace. Pace is the variable that should stay untouched longest when starting out.
When the transition to continuous running makes sense cannot be said in general. A usable cue: if the running sections are handled without breathlessness and without after-effects the next day, the next increase is sustainable.
Too fast is the norm
Almost all beginners run their easy sessions too fast. The reason is understandable: a genuinely easy pace feels absurdly slow at first, often slower than brisk walking.
The talk test is the most usable tool here. Anyone unable to speak in connected sentences while running is going too fast for a base session — regardless of what the watch says.
The benefit of the slow pace is twofold. It allows longer sessions at lower loading of structures not yet adapted, and it makes sessions repeatable. Needing two days after every run produces less volume than running easier and more often.
Shoes and surface
There are more opinions about running shoes than robust data. Studies meant to link shoe types with complaints reach inconsistent results; matching by foot shape, as is common in retail, has not proved sound in research.
What can be said: a shoe should fit and feel unremarkable while running. Changing shoe type alters load distribution and should therefore not coincide with an increase in volume.
Similar applies to surfaces. Softer surfaces reduce impact loading but demand more stabilisation; varying surfaces spread loading across different structures. No general ranking follows from that.
Cadence and running style
Many prescriptions circulate about the “correct” running style — foot strike, posture, arm carriage. Studies show that the self-selected style proves energetically favourable for most people: deliberately changing it usually makes running less economical at first.
Somewhat better established is the relationship with cadence. A very low cadence goes with longer strides and a foot landing further ahead, which raises peak loading. A moderate increase in cadence at the same pace measurably reduces those peaks.
No target number follows from this. The figures frequently quoted come from observations of competitive runners and do not transfer to everyone; the appropriate cadence depends on height, pace and surface. As a change relative to your own baseline it is usable, as an absolute prescription it is not.
Strength training as a complement
Complementary strength training is common in running, and an improvement in running economy — the energy cost at a given pace — is described in several studies. The effects are moderate and appear mainly with heavier loading.
On whether strength training counteracts complaints, the evidence is weaker and inconsistent. Plausible reasoning exists, robust general statements do not.
Regardless, little argues against it: two short strength sessions a week cost little time and work against the muscle loss that can occur with one-sided endurance training and low protein intake.
When complaints are no longer a training topic
Soreness after unaccustomed effort is to be expected. Judged differently are complaints arising during running and increasing with continued effort, complaints that can be localised to a point, that affect a joint, or that persist over days.
There is no training answer and no advice from a general text for these. They belong in a medical assessment before volume or pace is adjusted further.
The key points
- Heart and circulation adapt faster than tendons, ligaments and bone — hence the typical beginner’s error.
- Alternating running and walking is a method in its own right, not a stopgap.
- Running sections are increased first, not pace.
- Almost all beginners run easy sessions too fast; the talk test is the most usable tool.
- There are more opinions than robust data on shoes; a change of type should not coincide with a volume increase.
- An improvement in running economy through strength training is described; on complaints the picture is inconsistent.
Last reviewed: 14.08.2026
Created by AI