Running strategy re: becoming speedier

It’s a little hard to give specifics without knowing more details about your workouts—total mileage, length of LSD run, and details about tempo and speed workouts.

There is also the issue that training to run your best 5K and best half marathon can be a little at odds with each other.

And are you asking whether you should be doing less tempo and speed and more training at a lower level—i.e. “zone 2”?

Depending on your current base, to get better at a half marathon, it would probably be best to cut down on tempo runs, cut out speed workouts, and increase overall mileage—increase LSD (depending on what it is) and adding a longer run.

To improve 5K, I would keep the LSD run to no more than 10 miles, and look to challenge yourself more in your tempo runs.

In my older running days, one of the best tempo workouts I did was to run at 10 seconds a mile slower than desired 5K race pace for one lap on a track, walk 20 seconds, then repeat. What made this work was doing it for 16-20 laps (that was the recommendation—I don’t think I ever made it past 12). But that pattern of 85%+ effort, brief recovery, repeat for a high(er) volume of reps was extremely effective—and didn’t beat me up like speed work.

Another alternative would be to do a similar pattern but with longer intervals—say 800-1200 meters at slightly slower pace and a 60 sec recovery.

If you want to work on both, then I would do the LSD run at 10-13 miles, add another longer run (say 7-9), do your tempo work with longer intervals and consider dropping the speed work.

There are just some random ideas. I’m sure you will get many others.

Azdak wrote: »

To improve 5K, I would keep the LSD run to no more than 10 miles, and look to challenge yourself more in your tempo runs.

In my older running days, one of the best tempo workouts I did was to run at 10 seconds a mile slower than desired 5K race pace for one lap on a track, walk 20 seconds, then repeat. What made this work was doing it for 16-20 laps (that was the recommendation—I don’t think I ever made it past 12). But that pattern of 85%+ effort, brief recovery, repeat for a high(er) volume of reps was extremely effective—and didn’t beat me up like speed work.

Another alternative would be to do a similar pattern but with longer intervals—say 800-1200 meters at slightly slower pace and a 60 sec recovery.

If you want to work on both, then I would do the LSD run at 10-13 miles, add another longer run (say 7-9), do your tempo work with longer intervals and consider dropping the speed work.

In the fall of 2017, I did some training that was somewhat similar to the work described above. Since my endurance was fairly good prior to starting this regimen, my coach just substituted one day of tempo work on a track into my schedule each week. I followed this plan for six weeks leading up to a mid October HM.

A typical session would start with a 1mile warm up, then 12, 16 or finally 20 laps alternating between desired 5k pace (7:45/mile) and HM pace +10 seconds (9:00)as active recovery laps. Then a 1 mile cool down.

So the total effort would be either 5, 6 or 7 miles including WU and CD. This helped me improve my results in a fall HM by roughly 4 minutes (1:59 to 1:55) and my 5k time improved as well. I liked the feeling of being able to push the 5k pace, knowing that I could recover fairly well during the HM paced laps.

First of all, increasing your overall mileage will generally help your speed, both in the shorter and longer distances. One or two days a week do speedwork of some kind: VO2 max intervals, hill repeats, lactate threshold, or a fartlek run. On another day, do 5-10 strides at the end of your workout. A plan or a coach will tell you how many miles you should do of each to build up each week. The 80/20 ratio is a good one, so if you're running 40 mpw you would do about 8 miles of quality work.