Secrets to Faster Running
When I was younger, I ran every run almost as fast as possible. Okay, so not full out sprinting, but I always tried to get into that red-lining, heart pounding, sweat producing, muscle burning pace.
And not surprisingly, I became faster, but I also got injured – a lot. I falsely assumed that the way to get faster as a runner was to run every run fast and faster and faster. However, this approach only led to eventual injury and burnout.
So, after running my marathon, I started researching and focusing on how do you get faster, while not sacrificing health? And here’s what I found..
BEST ways to increase speed?Ready for it?
Pace variety and EASY runs.
This may seem like an counter intuitive, but if runners want to get faster, most runners need to slow down.
In general, most runners (me included back in the day) run a majority of their weekly runs at “moderate” pace (think of the pace where you feel a good burn. It isn’t easy, you don’t finish feeling like you could have gone more and you aren’t sprinting either.)
However, running at moderate pace every single runs hinders athletes from reaping the benefits of slow running (building better mitochondria – which help you run fast, burning fat, teaching the body how to draw energy from fat stores vs. carb stores, and gentler impact, etc.) and doesn’t also deliver the benefits of hard workouts (muscle growth and development, greater cardio gains, speed, strength, etc.) Running easy (80% of the time, give or take) allows your body to increase volume of training without demanding too much from your body. If you want to run faster, running more miles will also help immensely. But, most of those added miles will need to be slow, in order not to further risk injury. By running slow, you can increase your volume without compromising health.
This increase of training will then allow you to dedicate at least one day to focused speed work, which will help you run fast, and another day to long runs – which main focus is dedicated toward building the bodies endurance.
This form of training, having multiple easy days, coupled with focused endurance/speed building days gives the most bang for the buck. The athlete is getting enough rest to be able to really crank out a good heavy effort on the two to three days of hard work, while also allowing for enough recovery time to decrease injury risk!
