In the days after you have run and completed your first distance race, whether it was a marathon, half-marathon or ten-mile race, you may find yourself thinking about what could be different the next time. For most people, the thought becomes how can I run this race faster? With a little hard work and patience, you can make significant improvement to your distance running capabilities.
Build a Strong Base
Beginning a distance speed training plan without muscular strength and endurance can only result in injury. The most widely accepted rule for building distance is to not increase your total mileage each week by more than 10 percent. During this period of base building, utilize the Long Slow Distance, or LSD, method to build your aerobic capacity and your efficiency as a runner.
Build for Speed
After establishing your base, you are ready to add speed training, including intervals and tempo runs, to your workouts. Since these efforts are so intense and draining on the body, they should be done no more than two or three times a week.
Interval or Track Sessions
Interval or track workouts intersperse hard intense efforts with recovery pace work. Tracks provide a structured and measured distance and train you to pace yourself during a run. The length of the repeats will vary depending on your goals and where you are in your overall training schedule. After a sufficient warm-up of at least ten minutes, start with 200-meter runs completed at your near maximal pace. After each interval complete a 200-meter recovery effort where you walk or jog. Start out with four repeats and build up to at least eight to ten 200-meter efforts. After a few weeks you can move up to efforts between 400 and 1,600 meters. If you don't have access to a track and are unsure of distance, you can also use timed intervals starting with 30 seconds and progressively adding longer time durations.
Tempo Runs
Tempo runs, sometimes called incremental race-distance training, are a critical part of building up your endurance over distance. A tempo run trains you to pace yourself to the speed that you are planning to run during your race. An easy way to incorporate tempo workouts into your training is to take a measured regular route and check your time at various points throughout the run. Checking your time against a location can give you a sense of the type of pace you are running and something for you to compare against in future endeavors. Never do a tempo run at a maximal, or all-out pace, such as you did during interval training. It is okay to break the tempo up by mile or section as you progressively increase your ability to sustain your race pace over longer distances.
The Long Run
After several weeks of incorporating the speed training into your workout, you are ready to tackle speed on your long runs. Dagny Scott writes in the "Complete Book of Women's Running" that after getting comfortable with being on your feet for longer periods of time, "pick up the pace in your long run, do so gradually--anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds per mile faster than your easy pace." Alternatively, you can break your long run into pieces and run predetermined portions at a faster pace. These elements of training will allow your body to adapt to the demands of the long run and develop your endurance and ability to maintain a goal pace for longer periods of time.
References
- "Better Training for Distance Runners"; David E. Martin and Peter N. Coe; 1997
- "Runner's World Complete Book of Women's Running"; Dagny Scott; 2000
- "The New York Road Runners Club Complete Book of Running and Fitness"; Gloria Averbuch and Fred Lebow; 1994
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