Runners--a question -- train to increase speed or distance?

Crunchytxmama

Hi Runners, I have a question for you. I started running at the beginning of this year. I did my first 5k in February, in 37:53, or a 12:11/mile pace. I did another 5k in April, and improved a lot, doing it in 33:19, or 10:43/mile. I took most of the summer off (hard to run in North Texas in the summer!!), and just got going again about six weeks ago. I did a 4 mile race yesterday in 43:09 (10:47/mile). What I'm debating is whether or not I should focus my training time on increasing my speed and trying to drop my pace before I move on to tackle longer races or if I should go ahead and start training for a longer race?

I would love to eventually do a half marathon. I have my eye on the one in February (same event as my first 5k), because it would be really cool to me to come back one year after my first 5k and complete a half marathon in the same race. I've been overweight and not athletic my whole life, so this is a whole new, exciting experience for me! I am able to run for about an hour at a time right now.

Is it even possible to go from being a 10:40/mile runner to maybe under 10 minutes or even better? Sometimes I think I'm not really built to be a runner, but I do really enjoy the races! It doesn't help my confidence in my ability to get faster that both my Dad and sister have done races with me and placed in their divisions after very little training. I wonder if I could ever do that, but maybe I'm just not meant to be a fast runner.

Any thoughts?

abredbenner

do both - I was slower than you. My first full marathon, I ran that at a 12:30 pace. I kept on training doing 1 day of speed work, 1 or 2 easy runs during the week and 1 long run on Saturday. My last half marathon pace was 9:40. That was over 3 years. Google training schedules for which ever distance you want to run. There are so many guides out there. Choose the one that you think you can best follow. Good luck and you can do it!

Azdak

You probably can do both. At your stage of development, I am predicting that just the process of training for the longer distance (the number of miles required) will cause your speed to increase as well.

The other thing is that you can do some rudimentary "speedwork" -- just some simple interval training on one of your shorter running days--or maybe even two. You shouldn't be doing the same thing every day anyhow.

cp005e

Great job on your progress so far!

Depending on how much you are training, I agree that you can probably do both. I have had the same question - I trained for a 3.5mi run in May, and have been trying to work on both speed and distance since then. For me, progress has a little slow because I only run about once a week. My "comfortable" pace is still around 10:00/mile for longer distances (6mi is my longest so far), but if I am running only ONE mile I can now do it in 8:00 (at least on the treadmill). And for what it's worth, I NEVER thought in a million years that I would be able to run that fast! Don't get discouraged if other people seem to progress faster than you - just measure your success against where YOU started and how far YOU'VE come. :flowerforyou: