Let’s start with the not-so-great news: Despite being a top goal for most runners, speed can be a tricky beast to master. In fact, recent research published in the journal Cell suggests that getting faster might be counterintuitive for our bodies.
In that study, researchers looked at anonymized data on about 37,000 runs recorded on wearable fitness trackers to determine a number of factors. This included whether runners adapt their speed to different distances and if runners’ preferred speeds are considered optimal in terms of energy expenditure.
They found that like other animals, humans do tend to run at a speed that’s optimal, which means they conserve their calories and don’t run in a way that burns them too quickly. Also, they tend to maintain this speed despite the distance.
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From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense people would run at a speed that uses as little energy as possible, the study’s first author Jessica Selinger, Ph.D., researcher in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queens University in Canada, tells Runner's World.
That said, there are some ways to hack the system, of course. For example, Selinger suggests listening to music with a quicker beat because it increases stride frequency. She also recommends running with others who have a faster pace to provide more challenge and motivation.
But what else could be holding you back from reaching your full pace potential? Here are the common hurdles in finding your fastest speed, plus how to shave a little more time off your finish.
The speed block: doing the same workouts
The path to a quicker pace: speed training
Maintaining the same training, at the same intensity, means your body adapts to that training and intensity and then plateaus, according to Susan Paul, exercise physiologist and run coach.
“When we begin to reach the top of our aerobic capacity, our performance levels out,” she tells Runner’s World. “At this point, training needs to become more specific to elicit continued improvements. Simply put, if you want to run faster, you’ll need to train faster and that includes doing some speedwork.”
She suggests incorporating speed training into the mix one day a week to start. Before you start picking up the pace in those speed workouts, always include a warmup, she says. As an example, for someone wanting a better their half marathon time, she recommends warming up by running one to two miles at an easy pace before getting into speed intervals.
“The speedwork portion of the workout should be a total of between three to five miles in length,” she says. “Begin with three miles of speedwork and gradually increase it to five miles over time as you adapt to this new demand. Include a one mile cool down afterwards.”
The pace for the speedwork portion can be your 10K race pace, if you know it, she adds. If not, target a pace about 30 to 45 seconds per mile faster than your goal half-marathon pace. For example, if your goal is to run 9 minutes per mile in the half marathon, on your speed day, target a pace of 8:30 to 8:15 for the intervals.
The speed block: not training your brain (or body) for what fast feels like
The path to a quicker pace: focus on strides over sprints
An all-out sprint can feel satisfying, but an even more effective strategy for increasing speed overall is to incorporate strides instead, according to certified running coach Whitney Heins, founder of The Mother Runners.
With strides, you accelerate gradually over 30 seconds, then spend a few seconds at your top speed, and decelerate for another 30 seconds to your normal running speed. Heins tells Runner’s World that these can improve running efficiency, both in terms of cardiorespiratory fitness and neuromuscular fitness. Your mind-muscle connection learns how to increase speed in a sustainable way, she explains.
“Another advantage to strides is that they tend to be easier on your body, while still adding stress that strengthens,” she adds. And because it’s gradual, you can have more awareness about good form and maintaining that as you accelerate, rather than focusing only on speed—which can sometimes lead to sloppy form due to fatigue, she says.
The speed block: only training on flat roads—or roads alone
The path to a quicker pace: add some hills and cross-training
Even if most of your training runs and races are done on level courses, tackling hills can be a way to increase lower-body power and that can translate to more speed overall as well as better mobility, certified running coach Lawrence Shum tells Runner's World.
He recommends setting aside time for hill running rather than incorporating it into an everyday run—that way, you can focus on form without also having endurance as part of the same training.
A typical hill workout will be to run up a hill at a moderate pace—about seven on a rate of perceived exertion (RPE), where 10 is your maximum effort—and then come down easy, at about a four on the PRE scale, as your recovery time. How often you do this depends on your level of experience, but four to six times tends to work well when you’re just starting out.
Shum is also a fan of cross-training for gaining speed in running, because it works similar muscles but in a different way.
“The best example is cycling, because both exercises work your quads and calves but they’re targeted differently, mostly because of how your foot works in relation to the rest of your body, and the dynamic motion of each activity,” he says. That means not only can you become a better running by putting cycling in a running program, but vice versa. “Both cyclists and runners benefit from doing both instead of just one.”
Elizabeth Millard is a freelance writer focusing on health, wellness, fitness, and food.
