#6 - 80/20 Running¶

Subtitle: Run Stronger and Race Faster by Training Slower

Author: Matt Fitzgerald

Completion: 2026-02-01

Recommended: Yes (Partially)

If you like running (or sports in general) or are curious about the science behind training: yes.

If not: don’t bother.

Summary: The author presents the 80/20 training method—an idea he didn’t invent—backing it with sports science and explaining why it works for nearly everyone. He also provides training plans for 5k, 10k, half‑marathon, and marathon distances.

Let’s start with a confession: I thought this book was going to be a flop. Not because it’s another “here’s my system to make you faster” manifesto, but because it opens with testimonials. And testimonials usually signal the beginning guru‑to‑groupie relationship and this would happen over 272 pages in this case.

I was wrong. Once you get past those initial statements of devotion, the book turns into a focused, surprisingly grounded guide to running. Its message is simple: structuring your training around 80% low‑intensity and 20% high‑intensity can make you better.

To the author’s credit, he never pretends to have invented the method. He’s simply the messenger. He starts with the evolution of endurance training over the past 150 years and shows how elite athletes train today. And, honestly, if the best of the best do something consistently, it’s worth asking why you shouldn’t.

Even if you want to be skeptic and toss aside the studies he cites, the central idea holds: running longer at an easy pace builds stamina; building up speed doesn’t require constant all‑out efforts.

He spends a lot of time on psychology, expressed through RPE—Rating of Perceived Exertion. A long, easy run can register the same mental “effort score” as a short, brutal workout. But the lower‑intensity version is kinder to your body, reduces injuries, and—most importantly—keeps you willing to come back.

The real proof lives in an appendix placed at the end, where he talks about endurance sports and weight loss. It’s not the main theme, just a side topic, but it hits home: he does not know anyone who has lost significant weight through gym torture sessions and/or perpetual high‑intensity drills. But he knows scores of people who lost weight through long, low‑intensity work—running, cycling, whatever—and actually kept going.

There is one flaw: a book published in 2015 that uses only miles and min/mile? Really? Did the author genuinely not realize that most of the planet uses kilometers and min/km? I’m not asking him to abandon the units of his primary market (USA). However, converting both ways is a primary‑school exercise ... hence the question: why not do it and address readers everywhere?