“Now you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I could run like the wind blows,” says Forest Gump in the iconic 1994 movie. We all want to run faster, so let’s unpack what we mean by speed.
There are two aspects to fast running, and it helps to understand the difference. The first is pure speed, for instance how fast you can run on a 100m sprint. The second is more important for road and trail runners and it is what we call “speed endurance” or “stamina”, This is the ability to maintain a fast pace throughout a race. It is this “speed endurance” that runners mean when they they say they want to run faster.
Pure speed depends on our leg speed, which is largely genetic. But we can work on our speed and improve it to a certain extent. Runners with fast twitch fibres would naturally have more leg speed in a sprint and run faster.
Jamaican speed
The cheetahs of the track such as 400m and 800m athletes have good stride length and fast cadence. The great Jamaican 400m athlete, Arthur Wint, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, had a 6-foot stride! Wint won two golds and two silver medals at the 1948 and 1952 Olympic medal. With a 6-foot stride and a high cadence, he gobbled up the ground and was simply unbeatable.
But to run faster like this requires excellent hip mobility and strength, and it is better suited to track runners doing the short events such as the 400m and 800m.
Although most runners don’t need 400 metre speed to run faster, we can still benefit from many of the speed drills that sprinters do. I even have runners that I coach sometimes do a fun 100 metres progression run in the off season. With these 100 metre intervals they build up the pace until they hit maximum speed in the last 30 metres. It is fun and they learn to run faster and relaxed at high speeds
Speed work is key
Most of us want to be quicker on distances ranging from 5km (smash that parkrun), 10km, half marathons and marathons, and even up to 100km for strong runners. To do this we need to not only work on our speed, but also improve our running efficiency. Better running efficiency means that your will run faster for less effort, and this is done with speed sessions and improving cadence. Speed work is key for road runners, ultra marathons and trail runners.
Cadence is the number of strides we make in one minute and by improving it we boost our running efficiency. We all have a natural cadence, and with many runners it is on the low side. Some runners attempt to run faster by increasing their stride length, but end up with a slower cadence and then end up actually being slower. Modern running watches indicate your cadence and it is easy to check.
The great running coach, Jack Daniels, author of The Running Formula, videotaped runners’ cadence at the 1984 Olympic Games, and he discovered that runners in the longer distances of 5000m upwards to the marathon, had average cadences of about 180 steps per minute (90 per leg). Many runners have very low cadence of about 16o and would benefit by increasing it a bit to around 170 or higher. Runners that have a low cadence are often over striding, and the solution is to shorten the stride slightly, which in turn will automatically improve cadence. This in turn will improve running efficiency.
If you don’t use it, you lose it
Speed work does increase the chance of injury, particularly for runners that are new to it, and a coach can be helpful for this. A great all-round speed session for beginners and experienced runners is miler Peter Snell’s brilliant 75/45 interval training. The speed sessions will depend on things such as the level of runner and the race distance. Those new to speed sessions would benefit from easing into it, and a great way to start with speed work is doing fartlek sessions.
For most runners one speed session a week will work well, while experienced runners will do two. In my younger days I was able to do three speed sessions a week, but few runners can cope with that.
Older runners can also do speed work, but it is wise to get medical clearance and ease into it. Staying fast as we age is a challenge, but it can be fun and rewarding.
Improve your VO2 max
You VO2 Max is essentially your oxygen uptake and ability to use it. Having a high VO2 Max is needed for becoming an elite runner. The only way to effectively test for this is to do a full treadmill test, running to exhaustion while breathing into a mask. I did this at a high performance centre when I was young. It was really tough, and I was ready to collapse in a sweaty heap at the end. I had a VO2 max figure of 69,7 which was very high and at elite level.
But there is no real need for most runners to go to such extreme lengths, and the main thing to remember is that the aim of some of the speed sessions is to improve VO2 max. Modern watches indicate VO2 max, but I am doubtful as to how accurate that can be, but any increase in it can be seen as a good sign. It is hard to lift our VO2 max as it is largely genetic, and partly explains why some runners are more talented than others.
Some of the VO2 max sessions that I use for my runners are short intervals of 200m and 400m, as well as longer intervals of 800m and 1km. Runners can also use time based sessions and run at VO2 max effort for intervals of 2 minutes or 3 minutes. Our VO2 max threshold corresponds with our 5km race pace, so you can use your current 5km race pace as a guide for this.
A bonus with improving our VO2 max, is that recent research seems to indicate that people with a high VO2 max live longer. As we age, our VO2 max declines by about 10% every decade, so at 62, I no longer have a world class VO2 max. But it is still exceptionally high for my age.
Lift your lactate threshold level
Our lactate threshold corresponds with the speed at which we can race 15km to half marathons, and doing sessions at lactate threshold is an important part of speed work. The higher your lactate threshold, the faster pace that a runner can maintain. Typical sessions that I use for my runners for this are 5km or 8km tempo runs done at half marathon race pace. These runs are what we call “comfortably hard”.
Sort out your biomechanics
The first step for serious runners is to determine whether they have any problems with their biomechanics. As we get older, we can struggle with things caused by sitting at the desk or driving a lot, like tight and weak hips and glutes. We may be out of alignment or have imbalances in muscle groups, such as weaker quad muscles on one leg. A visit to a Biokineticist for an assessment can pay off in the long-term, as sorting out things such as these, will not only help you to run faster, but also help you to train harder and remain injury free. Seeing chiropractors and physiotherapists is also beneficial.
Putting it all together
Get your biomechanics sorted out, add some running specific strength exercises, stretching and the speed sessions. Two sessions a week for strengthening is sufficient for this. You may for instance do legs strengthening on one day and then core and upper body on another day. Stretching can be done more frequently. Yoga and Pilates are also great for stretching and it can be worth doing some classes.
If doing one speed session a week, you could alternate with a VO2 max session in one week and a tempo session in the next. If doing two speed sessions a week then you could do one of each every week.
This is not cast in stone though, as factors to consider are your running background and goals, and a coach may focus on other sessions.
The bottom line is that to run faster, you need to do some faster pace running once or twice a week. Do this and you will start to get the full benefits of your training and run faster
Coaching
