Speed Work Guidelines

I’ll show you what interval workouts are best for the most popular race distances.
Here are some general guidelines:

• ➤ Aim for a total of 15 to 20 minutes of hard running in your workout. This range means that the shorter your intervals, the more you should do of them. Don’t do more than 25 minutes total of hard running in a single workout.
• For intervals that take longer than five minutes to complete, allow a recovery time of about 50 percent of the time it took you to complete the interval. For example, if you run a fast mile in eight minutes, recover for four minutes before running hard again.
• For intervals that take from three to five minutes to complete, allow a recovery of about 75 percent of the time it took you to complete the interval. For example, if you run a fast half-mile in 3:30, recover for 2:30 before running hard again.
• For intervals that take less than three minutes to complete, allow a recovery time that lasts roughly as long as it took you to complete the interval. For example, if you run a fast quarter-mile in 1:40, recover for 1:40 before running hard again.
• Have the workout planned before you start. If you make it up as you go along, you’re more likely to quit too early.
• Figure out what your goal pace for an interval is in terms of time per lap, and then try to hit that pce on each lap. For example, if you want to run each of your interval miles in eight minutes, try to run each lap as close to two minutes as possible.
• Your time from interval to interval shouldn’t vary by more than 10 seconds per mile. If you run two interval miles in 8:00 each, and then a third one in 8:30, you did the first two too quickly.

How fast to run depends on how long your intervals are. I’ll show you how to figure that pace for specific workouts in the next three chapters.
Some runners add variety to their interval workouts by doing a ladder, or varying the distance of the intervals. The name comes from the visual image of going up in distance, and then coming back down by the end of the workout. For example, you might run two quarters, and then a half-mile interval, and then a mile interval to finish the climb up the ladder. Then you would come back down as you went up, with a half-mile interval and two quarters.
Ladders can help to break up a workout psychologically. You can tell yourself, “OK, just one hard mile, and then they all get shorter the rest of the workout.” If you sometimes need to coax yourself into finishing your speed work, ladders can be helpful. In general, though, it’s better to stick with intervals of one distance so that you practice pushing yourself mentally as your fatigue increases. That’s certainly how it happens in races!

Tips on Speed Work

The most popular place to do speed work is at a standard 400-meter outdoor track. Such a track is precise and unvarying, so you get objective feedback about how fast you’re running. When you do speed work on the track, you’re doing intervals.
An interval workout has a defined structure. First, you run fast for a specified distance (usually one to four laps, which equals one-quarter to one mile). You have a rest interval of a set length, expressed either in distance or time, during which you jog very easily to recover from the fast run. At the end of that interval, you run fast again. You repeat this process for the number of times you had planned at the start of your workout.
Technically, the term intervals refer to the recovery portion of the workout, but everyone has his or her own usage for this term. Some people call the fast runs the intervals, as in, “I’m going to do mile intervals today.” (I will use the term this way in this book.) Other people don’t use the intervals term at all; they call the fast runs repeats, as in, “I’m going to do half-mile repeats today.” Don’t let them confuse you. If they talk about doing intervals, that refers to the workout as a whole; it means they’re doing speed work on the track. (Some runners just say they’re “doing a workout,” meaning that they’re going to do intervals as opposed to a normal training run.)
Most runners do intervals of one to four laps. Doing intervals that are one lap long is called doing quarters, because a 400-meter track is just short of a quarter-mile long. That’s a standard distance for intervals, but for the wrong reason. Seems so logical to do one lap fast at a time, so quarters have become a regular part of many people’s training.
But unless you’re going to be racing the mile, quarters don’t help most runners as much as longer intervals do.
Quarters are too short to require any real sustained effort, so you have to do tons of them to get the benefits that you get from fewer numbers of longer intervals. When you do longer intervals, such as two laps or four laps, you’re working at the intensity that’s going to be required of you in races for a longer period of time on each interval. Running fast for a longer time provides a better stress to your system.
How do you structure an interval workout? What’s best depends on what race you’re training for. If you’re concentrating on 5Ks, then you’re better off runnin shorter intervals at a slightly higher intensity. If you’re getting ready for a half-marathon, you should do longer intervals at a bit slower pace.

On the Fast Track: Speed Work

Speed work is the best way to train the physiological systems that are stressed when you race. Your regular daily runs give you the base to cover the distance; striders help you to run fast smoothly; long runs give you a little extra boost of endurance so that you can keep running strong when you get tired. But to boost your performance in a race, you need to do some running at the pace that you hope to maintain in the race or even a little bit faster.
Running fast works in the same general way as running long does. After you do a long run, your body rebuilds itself so that it’s better prepared the next time that you try to do such a silly thing. Same thing with running fast—your leg muscles get more used to turning over quickly, your heart gets used to working at a higher rate for a sustained time, and your lungs get used to processing a lot more oxygen. Just as important, your mind gets used to putting up with a certain kind of pain, but persisting nonetheless.
When you do speed work at the right intensity, you’re going to be near your maximum effort. A little voice (OK, sometimes it’s huge) inside your head will beg you to get off this crazy ride. You’ll learn how to keep this voice at bay as you become more used to pushing yourself to keep running fast despite your fatigue. By combining the physical and mental benefits of speed work, you’ll be able to sustain a faster pace in your races. Aim for one speed workout a week when you’re building toward a race. The best ways to make speed work more bearable are to stay focused on your race goal to remind yourself why you’re doing it and (does this sound familiar?) to do speed work with others of similar ability (see the following figure). Many runners who run on their own every other day of the week seek out people to do speed workouts with. They know that they’ll be less likely to bag the workout when they’re running with others, and they know that sharing the effort with others helps the workout to pass more quickly.