Elite Speedwork for Experienced Runners | The Speedwork You Can Do Every Day to Run Faster

[@ProjectSynx]

Once again i randomly find a video of you and it's been one of the most interesting theories on speed work i have heard. Thought i should sub this time hehe.. keep it up man!

[@runelitecoach]

Welcome aboard! So glad you're enjoying :)

[@MarioatSA]

I recently did a medium-long run and instead of just holding a steady pace I increased my pace to around tempo pace for the last 200m of each km. It was a lot more enjoyable to run that way and it made the 800m steady paces feel so much easier. Just to break the monotony a bit.

[@runelitecoach]

Nice. That's what I call an alternation run. There's a chapter dedicated to in my upcoming book. Alternation runs are essentially alternating between paces that are faster than and slower than race pace over a medium long run, or long run.

[@ryanmiskin8925]

One of my favorite runs I did was a long run (for me, I'm trying to break 20min in 5k). I started off at 5:50/km pace, and negative split every km by 5-10 seconds and ended at 4:45 for my last one. And then I just easy ran a couple more km to get to 14km or so. It was really gratifying and kept myself interested because I was trying to hit certain time goals evert 5min or so. It was also pretty hard at the end, but not too hard to where I felt absolutely gassed or anything.

[@AH17293]

​@@ryanmiskin8925I'm trying to improve my 5k as well. I was doing 3 sessions a week but need to reassess as I wasn't fit enough to maintain the effort for my tempo run week on week.

[@yowhat-mo6xo]

I agree 100 percent with this. This if often very understated in my opinion. I am glad my parents started me out as sprinting early, and not racking up the miles at 12,13 years of age. And literally just had me doing 30 meter sprints, some speed endurance. And then at 14 I started running a bit only 15 miles a week. But I ran a 4:59 mile and Ik I just needed to work on the endurance bc it didn’t feel fast leg turnover wise. And then fast forward now 20 years old 4:09 mile rn trying to break 4 and upped the mileage steadily over the years to 75 and my legs are always feeling really good. Easy days easy but I recommend everybody touch on speed it will do a lot for you guys. And something that might sound crazy if you do need a day off, if your not injured just do a couple strides it could literally be 50 meters just stay relaxed. Sometimes my recovery days will only be 20 min. But I will really focus on doing strides faster then my event pace or at the same. The workout days is where I will do a multi paced system focusing on same pace faster pace and slower pace.

[@AH17293]

A 4 min mile is super going. What kind of conditioning work do you do and how often?

[@yowhat-mo6xo]

@@AH17293 I run lots of miles sometimes twice a day. But I will go really easy if not feeling good. If feeling good I will run 5:30 to 6:30 per mile if not a lot slower. And a lot of strides after the strides will literally take me 30 min sometimes and practicing running bc 4 min pace for very short distances sometimes faster. Then on hard days I will do lots of mile pace workouts, during season offseason will be vo2 max and tempos. Tempo for me is about 4:55 to 5:00 pace for 4 to 5 miles.

[@briandeal8927]

In all my runs, I enjoy doing really short strides as the last part of my warm up. I’ll run at a moderate to fast pace for 6-8 strides, and back it off for 10-12 strides, and repeat for about a mile to mile and a half. I find my slower pace naturally speeds up with the same amount of effort or less effort as my slower pace pace before strides.

[@runelitecoach]

awesome. Sounds like the majority are easy, and some are moderate or fast. Great way to do it. Thanks Brian

[@damienmartinezcoro7765]

How is it possible I just found this guy!!! My goodness!! M two videos in, and can’t get enough!! Thank you.

[@runelitecoach]

Thank you. I’ve been wondering where you were. Welcome to the channel

[@LanceWinslow]

I totally agree, as a Trail Runner, I always finish up the last mile at pace or pace +, and charge the hills early and often, just to do it.

[@runelitecoach]

Yup yup

[@liamroche1473]

Really great tip! @ 16:04, Gebrselassie's best mile was actually a 3'52", but he had the two mile world best at one point, and later lowered his PR by 6 seconds to 8'01", which very few have beaten since.

[@runelitecoach]

Good point. And his 1500m was equivalent to 3:48

[@wetalkhawkstv]

I just started doing this about a month ago. I saw some of the elite African runners do it. Every run they did they either added in a short steady state run or at the end like the last 3-5k they would increase the pace to end the run fast.

[@runelitecoach]

Yup. Even the very best, Bekele especially, relies heavily on very short intervals...done very regularly (every other day). Thanks Wetalkhaskstv

[@miestykid]

What an awesome video , full of facts and cited info.

[@runelitecoach]

Glad you liked it!

[@4541047]

Thank you so much for this amazing video man!

[@runelitecoach]

My pleasure!

[@jota55581]

After couch to half marathon in Five months ..im not that arsed about speed now im 55 and it hurts my dodgey knees .. but here i am watching .

[@runelitecoach]

Couch to half! Awesome. Keep it going

[@nordicwilly6650]

Another great segment. Love the idea of touching speed every time. I've been reading a lot about Easy Interval Method which uses lots of 200s, 400s and 1k

[@runelitecoach]

awesome! Yeah this is how many of the greatest of all time have trained. Bob Schul did almost 100% of his training in interval style. Of course, very short, and not very fast. Just broken up in to lots of short segments. Thanks for your support

[@nordicwilly6650]

@@runelitecoach One quick suggestion is to include links to the books you reference

[@Ultra_running]

Really good information and delivered well, thank you 👊🏻

[@runelitecoach]

Glad it was helpful!

[@MosesRuben-kh9yt]

Moses thank you for your tips great advice. Blessings.

[@runelitecoach]

Thank you

[@ZachJalteco]

Excellent video! Would you say benefit #3: Improving your one rep max, is the same concept as improving your running economy? This is how I've always understood running economy but am not sure if it is more nuanced than this.

[@leandrocaniglia582]

Thanks for sharing so many interesting ideas.

[@runelitecoach]

You are so welcome!

[@suemcadam7276]

This is an excellent idea!

[@runelitecoach]

Thanks :)

[@nickyRavioli]

Awesome … Thx

[@runelitecoach]

You bet!

[@kofuzi]

interesting

[@runelitecoach]

glad you found it interesting

[@stefan-runs]

Awesome advice, thank you! I was integrating strides into the middle of my easy runs and already feel more powerful in my legs. After a warm up of about 10 minutes I start to add a 100m stride every 5 minutes throughout the duration of my runs. I was wondering, does this approach disrupt the aerobic benefits we get by continuous running in zone 2? My heart rate always takes a while to settle back into zone 2 after each stride. That results in an intensity distribution of close to 50/50 by heart rate and closer to 85/15 by pace (easy/hard). Thanks and best regards, Stefan.

[@runelitecoach]

This is perfect. Yeah work up to doing one stride per mile run in a week (but they can be done clustered together of course). You can even get up to two strides per mile run per week. My two fastest runners in my program are 49, and 52 and they both do over 100 strides per week.

[@pv20ft6]

Would you recommend jogging in between your 400 m repeats or just walking around for your break? Thinking about adding 400m repeats at 10secs faster than goal marathon pace once a week. Thanks Man, I enjoy your videos

[@jumpropestairs6129]

I touch on swift everyday

[@ThePoignantPoet]

Thank you so much for this information! Because of you I started integrating this into my training doing at least 10x100m strides twice per week, and already started to see amazing benefits. I was wondering, what is the recommend rest/recovery time after each stride, and should they be a jog/walk recovery?

[@Startingfrmscratchitssfs]

Id say go for full recovery so there's no soreness, strides aren't supposed to be fatiguing

[@eoincasey5461]

Can you give me an idea of what a sample week would look like say doing nothing but the suggested 400s and strides and hill sprints with leaving say the sunday for a long run. Thanks.

[@edwin5419]

My problem is basically the opposite of what you ended with. I can run a km in 3:30ish at the moment, but my best ever marathon is 6:50/km average pace. I'm working on volume to extend my ability to hold speed over time. One of the downsides of being 192cm, 100kg is it just takes so much more energy to run than you little zippy people 😂

[@runelitecoach]

I hear you on that. So for you, it’s not about developing raw speed, but you could also think about this as the pace that you can hold for a marathon is a percentage of your 400 m time. Of course this is just a thought experiment, but it’s also true. Strides are way for you to accumulate a massive volume of neuromuscular Efficiency, without needing to do ball busting speed workouts. When you build up in this way, along with much higher volume at a easy pace, you have built a foundation upon which you can stack the big temple runs, which are going to move the needle for you. But you’ll be able to do them at a much higher level, recover from them much more quickly quickly

[@edwin5419]

@@runelitecoach yeah since finding you a few weeks ago I've slowly come around to the idea of doing more strides. Slowly, because I'm running almost as much mileage as I can currently recover from. But I've been throwing them in randomly through my base runs. They're a lot shorter than you talk about (like 40-50m), but it's been interesting. Like yesterday was a struggle towards the end, but I thew in a few and felt a bit better.

[@jumpropestairs6129]

No logging...

[@MrPhibib]

So should you ever stop doing strides/hill sprints? Let’s say your deep in your training cycle and 4 weeks out from race day, should you still incorporate strides on “non-session” days?

[@Myunclegivesmeworkouts]

Was wondering same thing

[@runelitecoach]

Great question MrPhibib. Yes, keep strides in the mix all the way up to race week. The only time to stop doing them is if your quality runs get SO big that they truly require a deep recovery. This is actually what elite marathoners do. They have a few really big workouts in the 6 weeks leading in to a race, followed by truly easy days...and many of them (up to a week or more). But otherwise, yes keep strides in there. You lose speed much more quickly than you do endurance, so keeping strides in the mix always is a good idea. You CAN reduce the quantity in the last two weeks before your race.

[@Myunclegivesmeworkouts]

@@runelitecoach also, do you think cross turning is a good idea to keep through the season up to the goal race?

[@nikitaw1982]

My nephew is about to turn 7 and his parents have a little money. I bet if they got one of those curved treadmills with a big screen showing speed and the kid just hit top speed and held for a few seconds 10 times a day before dinner or when he gets up or something and wrote the top speed on the white board on the wall beside him he would be pretty impressive pretty quick. he gets addicted to getting that high number and improving it. Because hes only a kid and full of growth hormones hes almost recovered a few hours later rather than 48 hours or so like an adult, improvements would be quick, more confidence at school as every one respects the fast kid generally. I'd do it my self if had the money and space.

[@runelitecoach]

For a kid, it’s just about having him enjoy the training so that he sticks with it. Don’t worry about performance for a 7 year old. Not even at all. Just enjoyment.

[@nikitaw1982]

@@runelitecoach You're right. Screen showing ur speed would gamefy the whole thing I would put money on

[@nikitaw1982]

@@runelitecoach last debating type comment from me on this but I think unless there's competition especially for boys there is no enjoyment. 6 year old boys in soccer and wrestling pretty competitive with each other. 7 year olds playing fortnight get pretty worked up. Siblimg rivalry pretty intense from way younger than that as well. I do agree the parent shouldnt vicariously live through the kid though...not too much haha:/ ballet and gymnastics for boys and girls that age pretty torturous. Remeber reading Brittany spears would be in tears if couldn't go to gymnastics practice...I hope her later break downs didn't stem from this.

[@davidleonard37]

My ciach has mé end my runs on 30 sec strides so I concur with what your saying. Should all my speedwork be at my threshold pace which I know is currently at 6.20 pace or faster?

[@runelitecoach]

No not at all. Not all speedwork should be at threshold pace. In fact, the current research on improving Lactate threshold doesn't even support running AT the threshold. You can improve as much by running slower than it. Your speedwork should vary widely and you should be touching on a broad range of paces. As you move closer to the race, the specificity of pace is increased.

[@mav3ric100]

Always been confused by "strides" and prefer fartleks.

[@runelitecoach]

Just semantics really. Unstructured speed work for both. But whatever works for you! Keep on lekking those farts!

[@joshuabeemer4062]

Could you recommend an example 400m repeat workout for a high school kid during base training?

[@runelitecoach]

It'll depend on their current mileage, and current fitness. So I cant only say, do a high volume of short, fast strides over 400m Intervals during base training. Base training is about building an aerobic foundation through easy running, and lots of fast speed, but very short intervals, so they can be repeated many many times. So I dont recommend 400s during base, better to do 100, or 200m strides (not intervals). But if the kid is within 12 weeks of the peak part of the season, then I'd call it support training, and they can do 400s at 15% faster than race pace, with a 60s recovery, and the amount of reps will depend on their current fitness, but somewhere between 6-20

[@lean2281]

If you are training at half marathon pace then you arent speed trainibg

[@runelitecoach]

That’s the speed for a marathon or ultra marathon But this video didn’t tell you to train at half marathon as your work. So not sure why you’re saying that.

[@lean2281]

@@runelitecoach so slow

[@Leonidas-eu9bb]

You don't know what speed is. Really! For most endurance guys speedwork is 400 repeats under 1min each! If you can't run a sub 1min 400 you don't do speed. You must find a way to hit this pace. Even if you run only 100s in 15s. Don't run slower!

[@runelitecoach]

So the vast majority of runners on the planet are incapable of doing anything called “speed”. Ok coach thanks