You often may hear about “speed work” and have questions or are curious:

What is it?

Should I be doing it?

How fast?

How much?

What kind?

If you have asked yourself any of these questions, then listen up. Firstly, as much as I love speed work or a component of what I call “Quality Work”, it is a bit misunderstood and frankly a bit overrated for most….ESPECIALLY for the less seasoned runner. True speed work is fast running designed to get your legs moving faster, improve leg turnover, improve overall leg speed, efficiency, oxygen utilization and toughness. True speed work is generally run at 5K race pace or faster.

Quality Work is more broad and faster than easy pace. Some of these workouts are tempo, threshold, critical velocity, marathon pace etc. Quality Work also includes true speed work. Here is the problem, most of us can move our legs fast enough to run our training runs and races at faster paces. Do we really need to run faster? Our stamina and aerobic strength is generally the weak link to running faster for longer and performing better in races. This is where our aerobic engine comes in and where we need to get better by building a bigger engine. Endurance and aerobic strength is the most key element.

Think of a big cake as your aerobic engine/stamina/strength and the icing as the speed work and quality work to sharpen up. The icing is good but is not the most important part of the recipe or cake.

When you think you need to do more and more speed work, just know that it increases risk of injury, stresses joints and tendons and puts you in jeopardy of not being able to build up those consistent miles of aerobic base/engine work which is the foundation and the key to you performing better in endurance events and getting better long term. A 40-50 mile per week runner doing 20% of miles as speed/quality work will always perform better long term than a 20 mile per week runner who is doing a much higher % of speed work. AND, that 40-50 mile per week runner can keep increasing mileage to get better and better because their easy pace miles allow better recovery. The 20 mile per week runner will be aching too much to build miles and his/her progress will usually come to a screeching halt because of anaerobic overload, injury or persistent aches.

With all this being said, faster/quality work is necessary for optimal performance but it only needs to be 10-20% of your total miles per week. If you feel you have not sufficiently built your aerobic engine/base/cake, then lean toward 10% and work on safely building up your injury free miles.

Basics to get you started with some speed/quality work:

STRIDERS (Strides). 1-2 times per week do them during the last mile of a run or after a Fartlek workout. They also can be mixed in throughout a training run to break it up.  Build up to a faster running pace (not sprint) and hold great run form for 15-20 seconds and ease out of it. Start with 4 and build to 6-8 + over several weeks. At the end of your reps, you should not be exhausted but feel exhilarated.

HILLS

Option 1

Find a low/medium grade hill. Surge up for 20-30 seconds. Hard pace, not all out but working it keeping good form and breathing. Jog down, recover fully catching breath. Repeat.

Option 2

Find a steeper hill. Run up for 60-90 seconds at a steady semi hard effort. Just go with the flow at a pace you can reach your destination without having to walk. Again, keep good strong form. Jog down, recover fully. Repeat.

SPEED INTERVALS

4-8 x 30-60 Second Intervals or 150-300m. After a good easy mile or two warm up, you pick up pace to a harder pace for up to 1 minute. This pace will be harder than you could run a 5k race at but not an all-out pace. At the end interval, you are tired but should not be at the point where you feel you are forced to walk. Jog or walk 1-2 minutes to recover, repeat. Start with 4 reps building to 8 or more over time.

FARTLEKS. 6-8 x 1-3 Minutes. Just run faster for 1-3 minutes. Play around with it. Play around with paces. The shorter the rep, the faster you go.  Mix it up. Run to the end of the road. Around the block. To the barn. To the second stop light. These runs have a  bit less structure and a bit more fun. Jog 2 minutes in between if a structured Fartlek or whatever feels right for recovery. Generally, these are run at 5K pace to Marathon Pace.

FAST FINISH in a training run or long run. It could be the last 400m or last mile or two. Do this only if feeling good. It should not burn you out but simply be at a faster pace.

OUT and BACK or Progressive Tempo Run. First half of the run is super easy. Second half of the run is progressively faster. Just pick it up a bit each mile. You should still feel decent at the end and not exhausted.

There you go. Here is your intro to speed/quality work in a comfortable, less pressure way. These are not crazy structured workouts but just a way to start doing something to speed up your stride. Striders can be done weekly and then mix in the hills, interval work or quality work once a week or twice if your weekly miles are higher as part of a structured SMART plan that also focuses on recovery. Remember, you need a lot of EASY days and easy paced miles to build that aerobic engine. These faster spurts talked about here  add variety to your runs so you are not always running the same pace. It is important to recruit other muscle fibers to help your development, running economy, run form and build strength to keep you injury free. There is no reason to feel intimidated and when in doubt, run the paces slower. Faster is not better.

These workouts should not be crazy stressful or beat you up requiring extra recovery days. A little goes a long way and they SHOULD NOT be done every day. Reduce volume in half or adjust paces if you feel too stressed after the workout. Also, adjust based on the weather as well. You can mix in some of the above as you build your miles up slowly but always be aware of how you respond and recover from these days. One workout should not mess up the following days/week of runs you have planned ahead.

After you reach your weekly mileage goals and start training for bigger events, you can add more volume and structure to your speed work with the help of your coach and/or training plan. Most of us are not at the level where we need to do high volume speed/quality work on a weekly basis. It is very important you train based on your current ability vs. how you would like to train or how an elite runner trains. Build miles, build aerobic stamina and enjoy the touch of faster work above until you are ready for more structure. Keep having fun and staying healthy in the process.