Preface

This post will answer that question rather definitively. This post will cover the bare essentials. I see people asking, and I get asked how to run faster all the time. I am going to try and provide a bare minimum of solid background and combine it with the practical how-to steps for running faster. I will strongly lean on two of the most credible sources of running literature I know of: Daniel's Running Formula, 3E and The Lore of Running (Noakes). These books have a sterling reputation and represent the best of the science and accumulated anecdotal wisdom of the running world.

There is no one "accepted" training plan. Even among experts there is a lot of variation. However, at the core there are certain key workouts that almost all elites use. I will focus on these basics and how you can incorporate them into a running program to run faster.

Who is this guide for? Anyone who wants to run faster. Specifically, you should be willing to dedicate about four to five hours per week to running and it should be the focus of your training program. You can and should do resistance training, but I am just going to focus on people who want their primary exercise to be running.

Why do some people run faster?

First, it is important to understand why an elite endurance athlete can perform the way they perform. Why can two runners follow an exact regimen of exercise, diet, and sleep and have dramatically different running performances?

• Biomechanics -- Some runners are more efficient and can go faster at a given level of energy expenditure
• Oxygen -- Some runners (VO2 Max) can just suck more oxygen into their bodies
• Blood -- Some runners have more hemoglobin and can do more with less oxygen
• Lactate Turnpoint -- How quickly do you accumulate lactate in your blood at a given intensity and the inflection point of when it increases dramatically

Bob, this is complicated, what the heck does this all mean? Simply put, this can be very easily thought of as running economy. For a given amount of oxygen consumption, how fast can you run? The answer to this question is your "running economy" and it is a key concept. The bad news, your VO2 max is close to set in stone and even if you train really hard for a long time you will not be able to increase how much oxygen you consume by very much. Genetically, some people are low and high responders to training so there is some variance, but not a lot. Alas, do not despair, you can still train all these other systems I mentioned and become a much, much faster runner.

"The best athletes are usually the most economical athletes (Noakes 1988)." -- Lore of running. Noakes is also a proponent that running economy is hugely important, possibly more so than VO2 Max.

All about that base

So, if you can't improve your VO2 Max, you are training something else to go faster. The overview is simple. You have to start running, probably more than you are. Runners that run more miles in training increase their economy. There is a lot we don't know about running economy, but, basically, you need to run a lot. We aren't talking about intensity or anything like that yet. How much you can run depends on where you are as a runner. The goal is to slowly increase the mileage your body can tolerate.

Ideally you can run at least 4 times per week 2-6 miles at an easy pace. If you can't that is ok, this advice and knowledge works just fine for you as well! Easy, meaning you can still carry on a conversation and on perceived effort scale of 1-5 you are chilling out at 2. For 3-4 weeks, you should do a bulk of easy running with no hard efforts. This prepares your body and gives you a "mileage base" or "fitness base" to work from. It encourages a tremendous number of beneficial adaptations and gets your body ready to do harder efforts without becoming injured. For untrained runners 4-12 weeks of easy running might even be beneficial. You, basically, want to do easy running as long as your fitness is improving (and as long as you can stand it).

Once your improvement levels off with the amount of easy running you can do, it is time to sharpen. And to understand sharpening we will first look at the systems we target when we perform harder running efforts. Let me also say that, if you are a starting runner and find running more than 2-3 miles too difficult, try fast walking. Our goal is to work at 75-80% of our max heart rate (usually a 2 on the perceived effort scale). If you can do that with fast (15:00 walking), do that! You can also cycle between running and walking in the same exercise, just realize you are probably doing something that is "high intensity" to your body if you are just starting running.

What is lactate?

Many people talk about lactic acid. Few people bother to learn what we have studied about it. I will talk about lactate as lactate threshold is something that gets used a lot in training plans (threshold runs). Lactate, not lactic acid, is a product of glycolysis. Glycolysis is the breakdown of glucose precursors into pyruvate. Pyruvate (or possibly just pure lactate) is then used by your body as energy (not quite, but close enough for our purposes). This happens in both the aerobic and "anaerobic" energy systems. As exercise intensity increases, blood lactate increases. The more carbs you burn the more lactate you get. That is what lactate in your blood means.

"Lactate is a key fuel in the body for exercise. Lactate does not cause fatigue, muscle craps, the stitch, or post exercise muscle soreness (Brooks 1998)." -- Lore of Running. You produce lactate as a result of carbohydrate metabolism. You can observe lactate in the blood, gauge your carb burn rate and make some meaningful guesses about an individual's running performance.

What about fat as energy?

At any race pace faster than half marathon pace you don't really use fat as energy at a significant level. You can't really adapt your lactate turning point maximally training at slower paces. If burning fat is your goal the slower you go, to a point, the more energy you use from fat, but it is a more complicated process than the anaerobic glycolysis we just discussed. We won't go further here, but you do use fat as fuel at lower intensities.

Lactate Turnpoint and Other Adaptations

Basically, there is an amount of blood lactate present right when you cross from mild exercise to more intense exercise. This amount, when graphed creates a sort of visual "Lactate Turnpoint". The observation, which turns out to be quite accurate is that, "the exercise intensity that can be sustained for 42km (Marathon-ish Distance) is very close to the intensity at which blood lactate concentrations first begin to rise above values present during mild exercise." So, the idea is that if we can increase our pace at the point at which this turn point occurs, we can increase our overall timed running performance on longer efforts.

Unfortunately lactate turn point is relatively difficult to measure and not of practical use, other than as a theoretical underpinning based on the types of training that increase it. Other useful adaptations occur with high intensity training, but this is one of the key ones that occurs. Many, many other beneficial adaptations occur: Liver glycogen stores increase, the mitochondria in your body adapt, your body grows more capillaries, you can increase your VO2 Max some of the time, you use more fat and decrease glycogen used during exercise at all work rates. Basically, a lot of good things happen.

High Intensity Training

When I talk about high intensity training I am thinking of training that is at 3-5 on a perceived effort scale. What types of high intensity running are there and what do they accomplish?

• Sprinting -- Anaerobic, improves biomechanics, foot turnover and certain metabolic adaptations
• Intense Intervals -- Maximum effort you can sustain for 200-1600 meters, repeated a number of times in a workout. Increases lactate turn point, running economy. Improves muscle glycogen usage.
• Tempo Intervals -- Maximum effort you can sustain for 1-6 miles. As a beginner tempo work is usually a couple of miles with a break in the middle.
• "Marathon" pace and work that is harder than easy. Think 2.5-3.5 on the intensity scale
• Easy pace -- 1.5-2 on the perceived effort scale. 70-80% of the miles you will likely run.

Generally, after you have a base under your feet and you are gearing up for a timed event of some sort, you should spend 18-12 weeks in a running program that incorporates Sprinting, Intense Intervals and Tempo Intervals, along with your bulk of easy running. The longer your race effort (Marathon, for example) the more you might emphasize long tempo work. The shorter (say a 2 mile military PT time trial) the more you want to focus on Sprinting and Intense Intervals. However, don't think that because you are running a marathon intense intervals don't belong in your training program. The adaptations that occur there will make you a faster marathoner (See: lactate turn point we talked about earlier). Or, an anecdotal view point: The fastest 5K and 10K runners also tend to be the fastest marathoners.

Building a training program

At this point we can build a simple training program. You don't even really need me to tell you more, we have laid out most of the first principles. A good training program for runners with 1-3 years of experience incorporates the following:

• Rest weeks, weeks where intensity drops. Usually every 3rd or 4th week. Prevents overtraining. Good practice unless you really know your body and what you are doing
• A base phase of 4-12 weeks of easy running only
• Intervals and Tempo work tuned to your desired distance
• Sprints and other economy drills (strides, butt-kicks, and other small things). Sprints are very short, BTW, about 50-60 meters at level 5 on the intensity scale. Do 3-8 of them to finish off an easy run. Rest completely after each one so that it is intense but in no way a real challenge

OK, but Bob you haven't told me enough details!

Okay. I am sorry. At this point we have just covered what many books have covered, but we had to skip a lot of practical details. So, let's build a running program for a hypothetical runner. Her name is Jill. She wants to run a really fast two miles for a military PT exam. She has 12 weeks to prepare. She can generally run 5 miles at an easy pace. She has come to me to help coach her and build a training plan. The first thing I will have Jill do is run an all out 5K. An all out 5K is an excellent predictor of running fitness. To figure out training paces, always run an all out mile or 5K. The longer the distance you can run all out, the more accurate the training paces will be.

Next I bang along through my Daniels Running Formula book, figuring Jill will run about 20-25 miles per week over about 4 to 5 runs. I want Jill to do track repeats (Intervals) and Tempo work. You can use tables like those found in Daniels or tools like this one (http://www.runnersworld.com/tools/training-paces-calculator). You can also find Daniel's formula in spreadsheets. Let's say Jill ran a 25:00 5K. Her easy run pace will be in the neighborhood of 10:00-11:00/mi, but we just let whatever feels good (2.0/5.0 on effort scale) dictate her easy run pace. We will have her run two "Quality" runs each week.

First: 3 repeats at threshold (turn point) pace, one mile in length each. Roughly 8:30 pace. Warm up 10 minutes. Cool down 10 minutes. Easy pace for warm-up and cool down. Rest for one minute in between each repeat.

Second: 1K repeats. 6 of them. Slightly faster than threshold pace. Call it 8:15. Because Jill is a beginner we have a choice to make here. We could have her run at her interval pace, but we can probably get the same adaptation sticking around her threshold pace. So we aim for work that is a little more intense, but in a 1K repeat format.

As time goes on we keep one of the threshold runs, perhaps increasing the total distance ran at threshold pace. Then we take the workout that was 1K repeats and may slowly increase the pace to be closer to interval pace as her fitness improves. Realistically it doesn't matter a lot! We have to monitor Jill's progress and see how she is feeling as she does this work. We also advise Jill to do one longer run of 40-50 minutes every week. Whatever mileage is left over after quality work and a longer effort is run spread out however Jill likes in easy runs.

Finally, the week before she runs her fitness test we have her half all of the mileage, but keep the same intensity of everything she is doing. No hard efforts for 2 days before the test to get optimum recover from any hard efforts. If Jill stuck with the program she is almost assured a new personal record in her fitness test.

If Jill completes this program successfully she could take a few weeks and do easy running and then tackle a more structured, advanced program with more quality work.

Training Intensity Table

From "Which comes first: Cardio or Weights? (Hutchinson)"

Zone	Aerobic	Threshold	Anaerobic
Training Time	70%	20%	10%
Heart Rate	Below 80% of max	80-90% of max	Above 90% of max
Talk Test	Complete sentences	A few words at a time	Single Words
Workouts	20-60 minutes steady	Surges of 3-10 minutes	Short bursts of 0.5-3 minutes

I didn't talk about nutrition and diet

Don't be afraid of carbs. You can also eat a high fat diet. Whatever sort of diet you choose, be very consistent. The goal is to ensure we have enough glycogen in our livers and in our muscles to perform optimally. This requires carbohydrates. It is highly dependent on the length of the endurance effort. Below an hour, just eat normally, and maybe have an extra bit of carbs. There are also studies that show you can eat a low carb, high fat diet for about 5-6 days and see no negative effect on your performance. However, before 5-6 days your body is getting used to a high-fat diet, and your performance will suffer.

Basically, there is a lot we don't know about the specific reasons. But, what we do know is that you should eat consistently and don't change things up much before a time trial or race. Carb loading has been studied intensely according to Dr. Noakes. So if you eat Paleo / high fat, just stick to that for at least 5 days before any endurance performance. And if you eat normal levels of carbs, just don't mess with it, in fact, you might even consider loading the carbs up a bit to top off any glycogen stores. Do I really need to tell you the rest? Eat your vegetables, lots of them. Make sure you have plenty of micro-nutrients in your diet.

The mental game

I would be remiss if I did not talk about the mental aspects of running. Running can be a very mental game. You should try to run (or even ride your bike) over as much of any course you plan to run as possible. Mental toughness takes you a long way during racing efforts. The best runners are the ones that have all the right physical traits and the mental toughness to endure suffering and are motivated to do so.

Conclusion

You are still reading? We have covered the basics of how to run faster. I left out so much of the science, and I simplified a lot, so don't skewer me for this. You will still have to do your own research on training plans, but now you have enough knowledge that you should be able to build a good training plan. There are good training plan calculators out there. The key thing is to run an all out 1mi or 5K effort and ensure that your training program has you running at threshold and potentially interval pace when you are sharpening. Eat clean. Be consistent. Good luck! If you want to run faster than you have to run faster, and more often.

EDIT: What threshold and interval workouts look like

I wanted to give a quick overview of some typical threshold and interval workouts since I said they were pretty important and I answered a few questions in thread. Threshold work is also often called tempo work. You will see this as 1-2 mile repeats (or 3 miles at a slightly less intense pace). Elites will even run more miles at threshold, training for marathons (6-10 is not unheard of). Running calculators using a recent race will give you a good pace to work from here. You usually want 2-4 miles of threshold work in a threshold workout. You can do it in one or two mile repeats when you are starting out. Always warm up and cool down.

Intervals are often done at much shorter distances and you can mix and match. You want to aim for about 4-5K of distance at interval pace. So you might see, 400x12, 800x6, 1000x5, 1200x6, or (1200, 800, 1200, 800, 1200), etc. You tend to run a little faster on shorter intervals (helps improve running form to go faster) and a little slower in the longer 1K-ish, but its still all "close" to interval pace. After each repeat you take a rest. The longest you want to work at interval pace is about 5 minutes. According to Daniels, you can take a pretty long rest when your interval is 5 minutes in length. For shorter intervals aim for 90-120 seconds. There is a bit of a method to figuring out your ideal rest, but basically, you want to be able to finish the last rep at the same pace as the first without dying. If you can't, decrease the pace next time, but keep your rest interval the same.

EDIT 2: Can you improve your VO2 Max?

YES! You can. u/bananafreesince93 correctly points out that VO2 max can be increased, through training, anywhere from 10%-30%. Interval training will target your VO2 max improvement the best. I didn't mean to be too glib saying it was "set in stone", but of all the things you can influence through training VO2 max is one of the hardest and its quite possible to be a low responder to VO2 max training (10% doesn't move the needle very far). Lactate threshold is more sensitive to training than VO2 max, and that is what I wanted to focus on. :)

Key Books

Lore of Running (4E), Noakes

Daniels' Running Formula (3E), Daniels

The Science of Running: How to find your limit and train to maximize your performance, Steve Magness

Resources

[Daniels' Formula Spreadsheet] (http://www.electricblues.com/archive/DanielsTables3-00-00.xls) -- This thing is sort of a monster, but if you plug in a recent race time and or time trial along with your age and weight it will give you a /lot/ of detailed information. It is quite handy. A good bit of it won't make a lot of sense without the Daniels' Formula books, but it will still be useful to see training paces, etc. Daniels' was one of the first to popularize the approach of providing a race time and then using tables to figure out training paces. Almost any training schedule type app you see will be giving you training paces very similar to what comes out of this spreadsheet.