For those asking how to run faster: just put in more miles!

. Granted I'm still not fast, my 5k time is now 26:52, but in June of 2012 it was 39:20, all running.

Your time is well above average for local races so you can consider yourself fast.

Keep putting in the miles and add some smart speed training and you will be placing in or winning your age group.

I started running a year and a half ago. My first 5K time was 44 minutes and quickly came down to under 40. My typical 5K time is still pretty slow - about 35 minutes. I am running a 5K this weekend though, and am going to try to do sub-30. It'll be a big stretch for me, but doable I think. For my 10K, my first was a year ago at 1:14 and change. That was my fastest to date until this past weekend.

OP, great what you have achieved so far and good luck with your sub30!

I can't honestly tell whether its hills, increasing the distance or intervals that has improved my times and endurance, but its always great to do a PB.

Congrats OP on your improvement.

I'm trying to think of a nice way to say this to not negate your progress but your pace really isn't what would be considered fast. Faster than before sure, but fast, no. It might very well be time to do some interval work and hills. They have been really good for my pace after I increased my distance.

I never said I was fast. I said I was "faster". I'm a slow runner. I will always be a slow runner. Clearly people aren't thinking about all the posts from slow runners (some VERY slow) asking how to get faster. For those runners, running more will get them there. Clearly I'm not talking to people who want to be elite runners or competitive. But, in the course of a year, by increasing my mileage, I've gone from the bottom 10% in my races to the middle of the pack. I call that a success. Recommending "speed work" to runners who are currently running at a 12+ pace is irresponsible IMO and is fairly likely to lead to injuries.

Seems like a defensive tone but of course I could be reading into this wrong. This is why I said congrats on your progress OP. I think its great you've made progress but the post was a bit misleading to me when I first read it.

Speed work is great for all levels though. What your basically saying is that if people can't run a mile in a certain time than they have no business doing speed work bc they will probably could get injured. I couldn't disagree more.

Regardless, like I said, great progress.

that's simply not true. for distance runners, endurance first, speed work later is a pretty sound mantra. and the op is right

perhaps she sounds defensive because your post read like an irrelevant stealth brag? as she says, she didnt claim to be fast she pointed out that she had got faster.

incidentally in my experience real runners support others. i ran a 10k year before last. i came stone last. as i was struggling up a nightmare hill at the end of the race, one of the winners came back to me and ran up with me, encouraging me to keep going. this young, fit bloke had nothing but support for me, and when i crossed the line he encouraged be to keep at it, told me what an achievement it was, and that with time and miles, my speed would get better. that is the kind of attitude i've come to expect from the running community.

the op is celebrating her achievement in this thread.

It's counterintuitive, but more slow miles really helped me become faster over short distances!

New(er) runners will see an improvement in speed the more they run, but they will eventually plateau. Running lots of slow miles makes one slow. To increase speed, one needs to do proper speed training (i.e. tempo runs, track workouts). If ya' wanna' run fast, ya' gotta' run fast!

Agreed. More miles will generally only make newer runners faster. But it will plateau at some point. Old runners like me don't get faster with increased miles. I plateaued for years until I started HIIT training. Now THAT will make you faster! It made a massive difference in my times. :drinker:

ETA: After reading more comments I see that there seems to be a heated debate about what makes you faster. I guess it's different for everyone. I can only speak from my own personal experience. I've been a distance runner for almost 25 years. Running more and more miles never made me faster. It just gave me more stamina and the ability to maintain a pace for longer distances. Intervals are the only change I've made that increased my speed dramatically - I shaved over an hour off my marathon time in one season's training.

I want to run faster but my primary goal is lifting. Adding lots of mileage will impede my recovery. Id like to accomplish an 20 minute 5K without ever running more than 7 miles at once. Point is, not everyone who wants to run faster has interest in long distances.

Thoughts?

I currently do tempo runs, interval runs, "long" comfortable SS runs, cycling cross training, and walking

i think your distance (6m) is sufficient to see improvement. what are your weekly base miles?

getting a 5k under 20 is ambitious. what is your current pace for that distance?

are you doing fartleks and hills already? if not and if you feel your endurance is there, try adding them in gradually to one run a week.

you will also speed up as pounds come off.

27minute 5K.... ~12 miles a week (~2.5, ~3.5. ~6) not including a lot of brisk walking. 10-15 miles of walking 2-3 miles at a time. Surely I could run more but not with three full body workouts.

Fartleks when I do outdoor intervals cuz I dont want to watch a clock. No hill work yet (besides a few hills on outdoor runs).

Dropping 7 minutes off your 5k to go sub 20 on 12 miles a week is not going to happen.

incidentally in my experience real runners support others. i ran a 10k year before last. i came stone last. as i was struggling up a nightmare hill at the end of the race, one of the winners came back to me and ran up with me, encouraging me to keep going. this young, fit bloke had nothing but support for me, and when i crossed the line he encouraged be to keep at it, told me what an achievement it was, and that with time and miles, my speed would get better. that is the kind of attitude i've come to expect from the running community.

I want to run faster but my primary goal is lifting. Adding lots of mileage will impede my recovery. Id like to accomplish an 20 minute 5K without ever running more than 7 miles at once. Point is, not everyone who wants to run faster has interest in long distances.

Thoughts?

I currently do tempo runs, interval runs, "long" comfortable SS runs, cycling cross training, and walking

i think your distance (6m) is sufficient to see improvement. what are your weekly base miles?

getting a 5k under 20 is ambitious. what is your current pace for that distance?

are you doing fartleks and hills already? if not and if you feel your endurance is there, try adding them in gradually to one run a week.

you will also speed up as pounds come off.

27minute 5K.... ~12 miles a week (~2.5, ~3.5. ~6) not including a lot of brisk walking. 10-15 miles of walking 2-3 miles at a time. Surely I could run more but not with three full body workouts.

Fartleks when I do outdoor intervals cuz I dont want to watch a clock. No hill work yet (besides a few hills on outdoor runs).

Dropping 7 minutes off your 5k to go sub 20 on 12 miles a week is not going to happen.

Nope. I wasn't able to get to sub 20 until I trained for my second marathon. I peaked at around 70 miles per week for that one and 2 months later ran 19:50.That was a 21 second PR, which is huge for the 5K when you start to get down into the low 20s. That was on doing nothing but easy running, strides, LT runs and some MP runs. Not a single bit of hill repeats (but I do almost all of my easy runs on hilly routes), or interval work.

Agreed. More miles will generally only make newer runners faster. But it will plateau at some point. Old runners like me don't get faster with increased miles. I plateaued for years until I started HIIT training. Now THAT will make you faster! It made a massive difference in my times. :drinker:

ETA: After reading more comments I see that there seems to be a heated debate about what makes you faster. I guess it's different for everyone. I can only speak from my own personal experience. I've been a distance runner for almost 25 years. Running more and more miles never made me faster. It just gave me more stamina and the ability to maintain a pace for longer distances. Intervals are the only change I've made that increased my speed dramatically - I shaved over an hour off my marathon time in one season's training.

This has me curious. I'd like to get a little more information about what you training looked like. For instance,

How many miles per week were you running when marathon training?
How many miles per week were you running when not marathon training?
What was your marathon PR before you bested it by an hour?
How much time passed between those two marathons?
Did you do any LT or MP pace running during your marathon training cycles?

It's counterintuitive, but more slow miles really helped me become faster over short distances!

New(er) runners will see an improvement in speed the more they run, but they will eventually plateau. Running lots of slow miles makes one slow. To increase speed, one needs to do proper speed training (i.e. tempo runs, track workouts). If ya' wanna' run fast, ya' gotta' run fast!

Agreed. More miles will generally only make newer runners faster. But it will plateau at some point. Old runners like me don't get faster with increased miles. I plateaued for years until I started HIIT training. Now THAT will make you faster! It made a massive difference in my times. :drinker:

ETA: After reading more comments I see that there seems to be a heated debate about what makes you faster. I guess it's different for everyone. I can only speak from my own personal experience. I've been a distance runner for almost 25 years. Running more and more miles never made me faster. It just gave me more stamina and the ability to maintain a pace for longer distances. Intervals are the only change I've made that increased my speed dramatically - I shaved over an hour off my marathon time in one season's training.

I've been running for about 20 years, so not quite as long as you, and had the same experience regarding my speed. Once I stopped doing speed work and focused on longer distances (50 mile ultras), I got slower due to the nature of endurance running.