Regardless of how long they expect to run, people naturally gravitate to the same, most energy-efficient running speed, according to a new study.

As race season comes, many runners have one aim in mind: to improve their times. However, according to a study published today in the journal Current Biology, speeding up may need rejecting our inherent biology. By integrating data from laboratory-trained runners and 37,000 runs logged on wearable fitness trackers, scientists discovered that humans’ natural tendency is to run at a pace that minimizes calorie loss—a fact that racers wanting to shave time off their kilometers will have to overcome.

The research team, which includes researchers from Queen’s University in Ontario and Stanford University in California, has been studying the mechanics of running in labs for 15 years but has never had the opportunity to observe it in the wild.

According to co-author Jennifer Hicks, they “were able to fuse the two datasets to gain new insights and combine the more messy wearable data with the gold standard lab experiments to learn about how people run out in the world.”

What shocked the researchers the most was how consistent the merged datasets were.

“We intuitively assume that people run faster for shorter distances and then would slow their pace for longer distances,” explains first author Jessica Selinger.

This, however, was not the case. Regardless of whether they were going for a short run or a long run over 10 kilometers, the majority of the runners studied maintained the same speed.

It makes it reasonable that humans would run at the fastest speed that utilizes the least amount of energy from an evolutionary standpoint. This caloric conservation has been found in animals from all across the world. However, in today’s society, people’s motivations for running have shifted, and if speed is the aim, there are several methods that runners can employ.

“Listening to music with a faster pace has been shown to help speed up stride frequency, which can then increase running speed,” Selinger adds. Furthermore, choosing quicker running companions can help you get an advantage.

Researchers will be able to acquire insights about populations with enormous pools of fitness data from wearables, according to Selinger and Hicks.

“You can look at connections with the built environment and access to recreation resources and start to layer all of that data to really understand how to improve physical activity and health more broadly,” Hicks adds.

Image credit: Getty

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