I don’t know of a single runner who isn’t looking for a magic formula that will make them run faster. That has been my quest for nearly 4 decades. After years of mistakes, I can finally say that I have learned a few things along the way that have helped me to run faster without getting injured.
The most important thing that runners need to do to become faster is to improve their aerobic metabolism. Your aerobic metabolism is what delivers oxygen to your muscles efficiently and enables you to keep running at a faster pace for longer.
Let’s take a closer look at what it takes for you to become a faster runner.
The Smartest Way To Run Faster
As distance runners, the fastest way for us to be able to run faster may seem content-intuitive. That is because being able to run faster means being able to hold a faster pace for a longer period of time. Therefore, what we need to be able to do is build our endurance level high enough, so that we are able to cope with running at a faster pace.
For instance, if I had no endurance capacity at all then I wouldn’t be able to hold any significant running pace for longer than maybe a couple of hundred yards, let alone a whole mile.
So, what is vitally important besides teaching ourselves how to run faster, is to build our endurance to the level where we can hold that faster speed for longer. If not, our endurance will blow and we’ll finish our run even slower than we were before trying to run faster.
Always Work On Improving Aerobic Metabolism
Working on improving aerobic metabolism is something that our cross-country coach used to teach us year in and year out. Working on and improving our aerobic metabolism are effectively the building blocks for our running endurance.
We need to be able to improve how well we can absorb the oxygen that we breathe and deliver it to our muscles. This is essentially where our aerobic metabolism comes in. We need to be able to work on that continuously because as we improve our aerobic metabolism other aspects of our running ability will improve at the same time. There are three specific ways in which we can build our aerobic metabolism. Let’s have a look at each one of those now.
Work On Running More
The simplest way to be able to build our aerobic metabolism is by running more. Therefore, the way we do this is by gradually increasing the weekly run mileage that we are capable of doing over a period of time.
When you are able to cope with greater weekly run volume aerobic metabolism will improve to cope with these new longer distances that we are running. To learn more about how to increase run volume safely out on the trails have a look at this article that I wrote that teaches you exactly How To Run More Trail Mileage Safely here on Trail Run Planet.
Work On Being Consistent With Long Runs
Another way to build aerobic metabolism is to be consistent with our weekly long runs. This is something that I slipped up on badly when I was training for the Xterra Triathlon National Championship in 2011.
My training program had each Sunday afternoon scheduled for my weekly long run out on the trails. However, Sunday afternoons would be the time of the week when I had family responsibilities before the beginning of the new work week. This meant that I’d skip training on most Sundays. So, by the time I got to the race I had done all the necessary speed workouts and strength workouts, but I had what felt like a zero aerobic metabolism to carry me through the three-and-a-half-hour race.
Include Aerobic Workouts
An important way of being able to build aerobic metabolism is by incorporating specific aerobic workouts within your training plan. By this I mean, go out and do runs that are specifically at a comfortable conversational pace. The reason is that is the level of intensity that you need to run at to be able to do aerobic level training.
There is very little chance of being able to improve your aerobic metabolism by doing all of your run workouts at your lactate threshold level. Even champion marathon runners like Eliud Kipchoge do approximately 80% of their run volume at what is their aerobic threshold.
Granted, the world record holder in the marathon probably does his aerobic-level training at a pace that far exceeds what most of us are able to do even on our best day.
Train Fast To Run Fast
Another way to be able to learn how to run fast is by running fast. I know this may seem like a very silly statement to make because obviously running fast entails… running fast.
What I’m trying to get to here is that you need to incorporate running faster into some parts of your workouts because that is how your body learns to be able to move at those new speeds.
I’m not saying that you should be doing all of your workouts sprinting around at full speed. If I’m going out on a long run that’s at a nice slow conversational place, I’ll pick three or maybe four spots along my route and do strides or short pickups. This is where I build up pulled up about 95% of my maximum effort, and hold the effort for about 2 seconds before easing back down again.
If I want to be able to run faster at my next race, I need to know what that feels like.
Race Frequently
This is another thing that I learned from racing cross country. Our high school cross country team used to have an 8km race every single week. One week the race would be on a Tuesday the following week it would be on a Wednesday, but we raced every week.
By racing often we got comfortable with running faster. It also taught us racecraft and race tactics as far as competing with the runners that were trying to beat us.
Racing every week stopped us from dwelling on a result of a race that went badly. I remember that for most of our team, by the time we got back into the team bus after the end of a race, our attention would be on doing well in the next race that was coming up.
Maintain Consistency All Year
An important way to get faster is to maintain consistency throughout the year. You don’t get faster by taking month-long breaks away from running at regular intervals throughout the year.
Improvement in running comes from being consistent, week after week for the whole season. If you don’t maintain consistency it means needing to restart from what feels like absolute zero every time you get back into running again.
When we maintain consistency we can build on the fitness that we have already instead of stopping and watching our fitness go down the drain.
One of the most important things that I needed to learn was how to be consistent with my running and not be distracted by “shiny objects syndrome” trying multiple different activities before trying to come back to running once I’d lost all of my running fitness.
Use Training Cycles To Build Through Seasons
A way to build speed and endurance into your running is by using training cycles. These are split into macrocycles between big key races and the microcycles that make up each macrocycle.
One type of microcycle that I learned to do while racing triathlon was short training blocks of 4 weeks each. The first 3 weeks of a block would build in volume and intensity before a recovery week. What I enjoyed about the 4-week microcycles was that it was easier for me to maintain focus on the training without getting completely overwhelmed by what was looming ahead for the remainder of the season.