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You Need Speed Training To Run Faster

By Gaelle Abecassis | Jun 4, 2024

It’s a fact of basic human biology: To run faster, you must run fast. Obvious, right? Yet so many runners don't. Instead, you can see them running at a conversational or just above conversational pace around the park or along the greenbelt, happily logging their miles. And that’s great. They’re staying fit and getting outside. But for those runners who want to go faster, it takes hard, intentional effort — a lot of it.

There is a payoff, namely, faster one-mile split times that trickle down through all your running intensities. With speed development, your hard 10k race pace from six months ago can feel like your marathon race pace today. That isn’t to say running fast will ever feel easy. It probably won’t. But when you post a faster time than your previous race, you’ll know it was worth the work. 

Sprint Training Workouts for Running

Speed interval training is how you build speed. Start with short sprints lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. The number of intervals depends on your fitness and your goal (10k, marathon, or a sub-5-minute mile). An experienced coach or an intelligent AI-powered coaching app like Humango will prescribe a set of intervals based on these criteria. Expect to be pushed hard but not so hard that you risk injury or overwork. Even more importantly, a coach will carefully manage your speed training workouts, allowing you plenty of time to recover.

In these sessions, expect to run hard and fast. In doing so, you should start to run more efficiently and effectively by building your aerobic capacity and neuromuscular coordination. Instead of taking long, loping strides as you might during a run at a conversational pace, speed work forces you to focus on a more forceful push-off to propel you forward. This will, in turn, increase your turnover rate and have you running at a higher cadence. During sprints, your arm swing will also become better integrated with your stride as you consciously swing your arms faster to force your feet to turn over faster. Through practice, these positive adaptations will make you a faster runner.

Training for Speed in the Gym

Power is a critical component of speed, and power comes from muscle. Think about the optimal body type of a 100-meter dash competitor. She's all muscle because she needs that power to a) turn over her feet as fast as possible and b) maximize the forward propulsion of every step. The same holds for an elite marathoner turning over 5-6 minute miles for 26.2 miles. It takes muscle power to keep that up mile after mile. 

For many runners, time spent in the gym is an anathema. It shouldn't be. Strength training can be a cheat code to build speed quickly, as resistance work can exhaust muscles in seconds versus several minutes or hours on a track or trail. Squats, broad jumps, hill sprints, and even sprinting in a pool are all practical power-building exercises for runners. Rather than dreading strength-focused workouts, embrace them. They will pay off on those long runs by allowing you to maintain higher paces longer.

A well-designed speed training program balanced with sprint intervals, strength training sessions, and longer recovery runs will literally kick your running into a higher gear. Do the hard work and see for yourself.