Training

Aerobic Pacing

Why most aerobic work should feel easy, how to check your pace with the talk test, and how to pace climbs on trek.

Trekking days are long. The aerobic base that carries you through them is built mostly at an intensity you could sustain for hours, not minutes.

In short: Most aerobic work should be conversational. On climbs, slow down and shorten your steps rather than gasping through. Build the length of your longest walk gradually.

A person climbing a wooden staircase into a shaft of sunlight in a cave

Steady climbing is the engine of trekking. Peaksted photo archive.

The talk test

If you can speak in full sentences while moving, you are at a conversational, easy effort. If you can only manage a few words, you are working hard. Studies have found the talk test agrees well with the point where breathing becomes laboured (the ventilatory threshold), which is why it is a reliable, no-equipment guide. On a 1–10 effort scale, easy work is roughly 3–4.

Why mostly easy?

Studies of well-trained endurance athletes often find that most of their sessions are done at low intensity, with a smaller share of hard work. That evidence comes from athletes, not trekkers, but the practical point carries over: easy sessions build capacity with less fatigue, so you can train consistently and still handle harder days.

Pacing on the flat and on climbs

On flat ground, hold a pace where talking stays easy.
On climbs, breathing will deepen. Slow down and shorten your steps rather than pushing through breathlessness.
On trek, especially at altitude, the same rule applies: pace by effort, not by the clock. See Understanding Altitude and Acclimatization.
Not every session needs to feel hard to be effective.

Building your base gradually

Increase the length of your longest easy session gradually, and hold steady for a week or two before adding more. Many coaches step back for a week every third or fourth week; that is a coaching convention rather than a proven formula. Add one demand at a time: duration, hills or pack weight. Your Mountain Day is where these come together — see Mountain Day Field Guide.

Using heart rate

A heart-rate monitor can be a useful cross-check, but zones from generic formulas can be off by a wide margin for individuals. If your heart rate and the talk test disagree, trust the talk test and how you feel.

Common mistakes

Treating every aerobic session as a race.
Pushing climbs to a point where you cannot speak. Both erode the base the session was meant to build.
Skipping recovery. See Recovery & Adjustments.

Three ways to check your effort

Check	Easy	Hard
Talk test	Full sentences	Single words
Breathing	Deep but steady, through nose or mouth	Gasping, cannot settle
Effort scale (1–10)	3–4	8–10

An illustrative build (not a prescription)

One example of how the longest easy walk might progress over a block for someone starting from a regular routine. Adjust to your own baseline and recovery.

Week	Longest easy walk
1	60 minutes
2	70 minutes
3	80 minutes
4	Step back: 60 minutes
5	90 minutes

Myth versus evidence

Common belief	What the evidence suggests
No pain, no gain.	Easy sessions build a large part of your aerobic base with less fatigue. Hard sessions have a place, but they are the smaller share.
Walking is too easy to count.	For most people preparing for a trek, hills, time on feet and a pack make walking genuinely demanding.

Coach’s tip: if you are unsure whether you are going too hard, slow down for the next ten minutes. If you can hold a conversation at that pace, that is your easy pace.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use heart rate instead?

You can as a cross-check, but generic zones can be well off for individuals. If heart rate and the talk test disagree, trust how you feel.

Is walking enough?

For many people, yes, especially with hills, uneven ground and a pack added over time.

Why does easy feel so slow?

It is meant to. The aim is to build capacity without piling on fatigue. Effort on climbs will feel higher even at a slow pace.

Last updated September 2026. General education, not medical advice or a personalised prescription. Stop and seek qualified advice if you have sharp, increasing or persistent pain, or a health condition that may affect exercise.

Keep exploring

Research behind the advice

Apply this to Annapurna Base Camp

On the Annapurna Base Camp trek, an easy aerobic base helps you pace repeated village-to-valley walking days. The route also demands stone-step climbing and a long return descent. See the ABC route and training plan.

About the author

Nathan Gee is Peaksted’s founder: a sport scientist (BSc Sports Science) with a strength and conditioning background and eight years of coaching experience, focused on hiking and trekking performance. Meet the Peaksted team.