Runners: Speed Training for Distance

WarriorReady

Totally agree with most everyone about building your endurance and the speed will come after. Best of luck!

cls_333

I'm no expert but I tend to disagree with the posts in here. I'm training for a half marathon and think that sprint work is an important part of that training. I do minimum 2 sprint sessions a week and one long slower run on the weekend. This doesn't mean that you are focusing on speed but sprint work can increase your endurance. HIIT has been shown to be just as, or more effective for increasing endurance as longer steady state runs.

Just something interesting. Google 'Yasso's 800s'. It predicts that if you can run 10x800m in a certain time this will be your marathon time. I.e. 10x800m with each 800 done in 2min40sec would be a 2 hour 40second marathon time.

Try running 10 x 800M at a good hard pace without some mileage under your belt! You can do them, but they sure won't be fast, and neither will your marathon time.

rybo

Yep. The way to decrease your time is to run more miles. The marathon is between 97% and 99% aerobic, so that is the system that you need to develop. This is done by running lots of slow, easy, conversational pace miles over time.

I just finished my 3rd marathon last month. 85% of the miles I ran were at around a 9:30 pace. The other 15% were a combination of tempo runs that varied between 6:45 and 7:30 pace and once a week doing strides of 100 meters, usually 8 to 10. So, you can see, the vast majority of the mileage was done at an easy pace. Was this plan successful for me? I set a PR in the marathon by 14 minutes, running 3:12. I ran a 6:00 negative split. My overall pace was 7:17, right in the middle of where my tempo runs were. I ran the last 4 miles at 6:51 pace, right at the fastest end of my tempo runs.

So, my easy runs were about two minutes per mile slower than my marathon pace. I think this is a pretty good illustration that running more slow, easy miles will make you faster.

Good luck on your next one!

That's impressive! Awesome

As for the HIIT debate...my expirement of one showed HIIT was absolutley meaningless for my endurance. I was a sprinter in college, so obviously we did HIIT type workouts until the cows came home. Because my college was small I also did a little bit of XC just to keep in shape year round. I got absolutely annihilated by the distance runners even though I would destroy them during any "speed" workout we did in practice. hills, repeats, etc, I finsihed first. Come an actual 5 mile race, I finished near the very back end of the runners.

gmallan

Final Verdict: And the Winner of the Battle of the Aerobic Titans is . . .
The major goals of most endurance exercise programs are to improve cardiovascular, metabolic and skeletal-muscle function in the body. For years, continuous aerobic exercise has been the chosen method for achieving these goals. However, research shows that HIIT leads to similar and, in some cases, better improvements in less time for some physiological markers. Incorporating HIIT (with appropriate intensity and frequency) into your clients’ cardiovascular training gives them a time-efficient way to reach their goals.

And since both HIIT and continuous aerobic exercise programs improve all of these meaningful physiological and metabolic functions of the human body, incorporating a balance of both programs in clients’ training is clearly the “win-win” approach for successful cardiovascular exercise improvement and performance. Go HIIT and go endurance!

The OP didn't state that they were interested in the best endurance exercise program, but how to run a faster marathon. It's been proven time and again that a proper aerobic base is the key to improving marathon performance and the best way to build that base is to run lots of aerobic miles. If HIIT was the way to go Renato Canova's athletes would be doing it. They aren't.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that the OP isn't a professional marathon runner and possibly doesn't have limitless time to work out. As this article points out HIIT can give you good bang for your buck in terms of time spent and improvements in endurance. Tell me how improving endurance won't improve your time and how sprint work won't increase leg power which will also help speed.

For the record I've never said don't do longer steady runs. All my posts say that you should be doing at least one long steady per week. Just pointing out that there are other options for training and that I honestly don't think that all your training should be steady state.

I've been doing a combination of HIIT, interval sprints, hill work and longer runs and my longer run times are getting quicker per km even though I'm increasing the distance. Must be doing something right

MissFit0101

Final Verdict: And the Winner of the Battle of the Aerobic Titans is . . .
The major goals of most endurance exercise programs are to improve cardiovascular, metabolic and skeletal-muscle function in the body. For years, continuous aerobic exercise has been the chosen method for achieving these goals. However, research shows that HIIT leads to similar and, in some cases, better improvements in less time for some physiological markers. Incorporating HIIT (with appropriate intensity and frequency) into your clients’ cardiovascular training gives them a time-efficient way to reach their goals.

And since both HIIT and continuous aerobic exercise programs improve all of these meaningful physiological and metabolic functions of the human body, incorporating a balance of both programs in clients’ training is clearly the “win-win” approach for successful cardiovascular exercise improvement and performance. Go HIIT and go endurance!

The OP didn't state that they were interested in the best endurance exercise program, but how to run a faster marathon. It's been proven time and again that a proper aerobic base is the key to improving marathon performance and the best way to build that base is to run lots of aerobic miles. If HIIT was the way to go Renato Canova's athletes would be doing it. They aren't.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that the OP isn't a professional marathon runner and possibly doesn't have limitless time to work out. As this article points out HIIT can give you good bang for your buck in terms of time spent and improvements in endurance. Tell me how improving endurance won't improve your time and how sprint work won't increase leg power which will also help speed.

For the record I've never said don't do longer steady runs. All my posts say that you should be doing at least one long steady per week. Just pointing out that there are other options for training and that I honestly don't think that all your training should be steady state.

I've been doing a combination of HIIT, interval sprints, hill work and longer runs and my longer run times are getting quicker per km even though I'm increasing the distance. Must be doing something right

never mind.

gmallan

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never mind.
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Great response

timboom1

Final Verdict: And the Winner of the Battle of the Aerobic Titans is . . .
The major goals of most endurance exercise programs are to improve cardiovascular, metabolic and skeletal-muscle function in the body. For years, continuous aerobic exercise has been the chosen method for achieving these goals. However, research shows that HIIT leads to similar and, in some cases, better improvements in less time for some physiological markers. Incorporating HIIT (with appropriate intensity and frequency) into your clients’ cardiovascular training gives them a time-efficient way to reach their goals.

And since both HIIT and continuous aerobic exercise programs improve all of these meaningful physiological and metabolic functions of the human body, incorporating a balance of both programs in clients’ training is clearly the “win-win” approach for successful cardiovascular exercise improvement and performance. Go HIIT and go endurance!

The OP didn't state that they were interested in the best endurance exercise program, but how to run a faster marathon. It's been proven time and again that a proper aerobic base is the key to improving marathon performance and the best way to build that base is to run lots of aerobic miles. If HIIT was the way to go Renato Canova's athletes would be doing it. They aren't.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that the OP isn't a professional marathon runner and possibly doesn't have limitless time to work out. As this article points out HIIT can give you good bang for your buck in terms of time spent and improvements in endurance. Tell me how improving endurance won't improve your time and how sprint work won't increase leg power which will also help speed.

For the record I've never said don't do longer steady runs. All my posts say that you should be doing at least one long steady per week. Just pointing out that there are other options for training and that I honestly don't think that all your training should be steady state.

I've been doing a combination of HIIT, interval sprints, hill work and longer runs and my longer run times are getting quicker per km even though I'm increasing the distance. Must be doing something right

And up to a point, this may work for you. How are your 30km+ long runs going, and do you think you can add another 12km on after that?

The OP wants a faster marathon, to do this they will need to be able to sustain faster effort over many hours. HIIT, speedwork etc... are all great ways to maximize speed at current endurance, but are not ways to truly improve distance running endurance. The OP is a beginner, the science on running (surprise, there is a lot of it.) is pretty clear, as a beginner, the biggest gains (outside of weight loss) come from increasing average weekly mileage. Taking shortcuts with the goal of getting the same benefit of base miles will usually result in a DNF at worst and a deathmarch finish at best.

bluefox9er

My $.02: you don't speed, you need endurance. Work on running without walk breaks. Once you can run for 8 or 10 miles without stopping, then you can add in some speedwork.

One of many priceless nuggets of advice that arc has passed on to me when I started c25k and culminated with a faster than expected first marathon time, all inside of a year.

I am comfortable in knowing I won't win races, but as a long distance runner, the distance comes before my speed.

However, the more miles you run and log, the faster in time you will become. I have never done any sort of dedicated speed work/fartleks/HIIT types of runs...I max out my ' long runs' and make sure I benefit from what they are there for..to build ENDURANCE...everything else is secondary to me.

Congratulations on completing your marathon and have a very long,healthy,happy and rewarding running career!

dbmata

I also say Yassos are a 100% accurate predictor of one's ability to run Yassos...

That was clever.

CarsonRuns

I also say Yassos are a 100% accurate predictor of one's ability to run Yassos...

That was clever.

And quite true.

scottb81

I also say Yassos are a 100% accurate predictor of one's ability to run Yassos...

That was clever.

And quite true.

I did a session of Yassos last fall that predicted a 3:15 or better marathon. Then I ran a 3:32. I am skeptical that they are of any predictive value at all.

MinimalistShoeAddict

I agree with others that building aerobic capacity and endurance is most important.

That being said I tried the Yasso 800s for the first time this afternoon (after a long 177 minute run earlier this morning) and had fun. I wont comment on their prediction accuracy yet as my first marathon is not for a few months and my pacing was off today (I ran too fast of a pace to repeat for many repetitions in my already tired state).

Please excuse the bouncing video. I did not plan on recording and had to hold the phone in my hand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8gPN4TcobM

jdm_taco

more mileage