Running speed help needed

I'm pretty slow, too. I took up running in my 50s.

To get faster overall, what you are training is your entire cardiovascular system. When you imagine all the changes that are needed to speed you up (to your lungs, heart, veins, arteries, muscles, etc.), you can appreciate that it takes years to make significant improvements. It's a bit easier if you are younger, but you can make improvements at any age.

Many of these changes will occur just from running regularly at almost any speed such that your HR is sufficiently elevated. That is enough to signal to your body that it needs to make improvements. Keeping light is helpful as well.

If you want to do an "interval day," you can do that too (assuming you are in good health). When you do it right, it's hard! For starters, I'd suggest an outdoor track or a treadmill, rather than a hill. Hill intervals are doubly hard.

Before quarantine, I thought the most fun way to do running intervals was at an indoor "run clinic" which had a DJ/coach. Everyone was packed in together on treadmills with dance music. It was a little like a rave, but with running. The room was darkened so you could go at whatever level you wanted and no one would know. You definitely want to be all clear with your doctor before trying this! (I wonder how many people end up being carried out of the room the first time. The staff always looked worried when I showed up.)

maiomaio71 wrote: »

I've been jogging for about 4 months now, having walked daily for 18 months.
I am going about 3 or 4 times a week, with a one-hour bootcamp twice a week, occasionally swimming or cycling instead of a run and a few squash games thrown in.
I had a target in mind, to run 10k by the end of term. I've managed that, in fact done it a couple of times now.
My next challenge is to get faster.bim currently running 9 minute kms average over 10k. I really want to get down to 7 or even 6minute kms.
I've tried fartlek running but I really struggled with it. I can run for 90 minutes or more at my slow pace, but as soon as I speed up I can't last long at all. At my 9 minute pace, my breathing is easy and it's my legs that give out first. As soon as I try to go faster, I struggle with rhythm and breathing.
How can I build up speed so I'm running 10k regularly at 7 minutes a km? Do I even need to worry about speed?
I've lost nearly 50kg and hoped as I got lighter I'd get faster, but that hasn't happened!

Forgive me if I scanned this post.

1. If I understand you have run 10k a few times.
2.. You attempted fartlek with some resistance.
3. You want to improve your 10k times.
4. Your also doing a boot camp style train.
5. You swamp out runs for other forms of cardio.
6. All of this in a four month time.

Correct?

What programming are you running and does it include a long run day that is mpre than 10k?

When you ran fartleks, did you run at random intervals and time lengths? If so, you immediately got winded?

What means are using for proper load management?

It seems you have a lot of fatigue accumulated from cardio that isnt specific to your goal.

I'm a slow runner. I run around 8:20ish min/km most of the time. However I find that when I do a structured programme I run faster. It's not that the longer or whatever runs help. I've just started the second week of a 10k programme, and in the first week I ran faster than 7:50 average on every single run. My guess is that I have an aim, and put in more effort. Mind you, I still won't be able to run really fast regardless of how fit I am. But I know I'm able to run faster if there's a reason for it.

tsazani wrote: »

Have you ever tried or considered the MAF method?

Google it.

I did, interesting!