In sports such as distance running, cycling, rowing, and cross-country skiing, aerobic endurance---the extent to which the body can convert inspired oxygen into physical work without relying on other energy sources---is the foremost determinant of performance. However, an endurance athlete's repertoire is not fully complete unless he dedicates a portion of his training to developing raw speed, needed not only for a finishing sprint or "kick" but also for sharp mid-race changes of pace.
Significance
All else being equal---that is, assuming two runners, riders or skiers of equal aerobic fitness---the athlete with superior speed development holds a clear competitive advantage. A racer who has trained herself to rapidly "turn over" her arms or legs in the face of significant fatigue will, despite subjective feelings of exhaustion matching those of her fellow competitors, be able to pull away from the field owing to biomechanical, neuromuscular and biochemical advantages.
Misconceptions
Many athletes are led to believe from a young age that finishing every workout at high velocity or intensity or doing lots of "wind sprints" or other all-out bursts are the best routes to developing speed in the context of endurance events. While some pure-speed training is useful, endurance athletes benefit far more from speed training suited to their events, such as 3- to 5-minute intervals at or slightly below race pace with a few minutes' rest in between.
Features
Speed endurance training, as described on Sports Fitness Advisor, is aimed primarily at improving the body's ability to tolerate and clear lactate, a by-product of anaerobic metabolism. Pure aerobic work, such as a long, easy run or bike ride, helps little in this regard, whereas interval training involving short rests and lactate-threshold workouts, which are controlled, sustained efforts performed at an intensity at which the body begins to accumulate lactate, are ideal.
Considerations
As noted on SpeedEndurance.com, staying relaxed and focusing on maintaining form are essential to making the most of speed endurance training. Optimizing the recovery period between repetitions is also important, because if heart rate is allowed to drop too far, lactate build-up throughout the workout does not occur and hence the body does not "learn" to clear it during high-intensity exercise. Finally, a solid aerobic foundation is required if speed endurance training is to be maximally beneficial.
Benefits
As detailed in the study reviewed on Body Recomposition, intermittent interval training is superior to steady-state aerobic training in terms of boosting anaerobic capacity. What this translates to is giving athletes an extra "gear" that allows them to tap into reserves at the end of a race that their aerobic-trained-only peers do not have. This is not a speed issue so much in terms of mechanics, but in that the energy sources for aerobic and anaerobic exercise are markedly different.
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