Speed days are my favorite. They’re the days that I know I’m going to see some improvements in my training. In the beginning, when I started doing speed workouts, they were frustrating because I wasn’t seeing the results right away. Now, they’re a favorite of mine because after sticking to doing them once or twice a week for several months, I’m starting to see the benefits of doing them.
Here are some of the speed workouts that are great to incorporate into your training. Personally, I like to rotate these workouts around. For a couple weeks, I’ll do 400m repeats as my speed workout. A couple weeks later, I’ll switch to mile repeats. Do what works for you and works for your schedule. If you want to level up your running speed, it’s important to incorporate some of these.
Mile Repeats
Benefits:
Improve speed
Improve mental toughness
Improve running economy
This workout has a special place in my heart. While it may not be the most effective at building speed, it makes your cardio system work hard. Here is a breakdown of the workout:
Adjust your pace target to what fits your goals. A good place to start would be to make the pace target around ~90% of your max effort for a 1-mile run. You do not want to gas yourself after the first repeat. The gassing will come around the 3rd one, I promise.
Mile repeats can be great for beginners who struggle with pacing in doing tempo runs.
If you are a beginner, try to go to a track. If you do not have a track near by you can use a GPS watch that can gauge your mile. Try to make sure that you find a path where you do not have to stop or cross streets though.
1K Repeats
Benefits:
Increase lactate threshold
Prepare for your race
Build endurance
Improve speed endurance
Learning pace control
Alternatively to a mile repeat, you can do a 1K repeat. 1K is about .62 miles. With this workout, you can increase the speed a little bit versus the speed you would have in the mile repeat. You want your speed to be about 80-90% of the fastest you can sprint at.
The purpose of this workout is to attempt to run each lap at the goal you want to run a 5K. If you’re targeting a sub-20 minute 5K (like I am), then you will want to run each lap a little below that pace. If you can complete all these interval at the desired pace, it will definitely bring some confidence to the race you will have ahead of you.
If you struggle with pace control (something that I struggle with), this is a great workout for you to add to the tool belt.
Do a workout similar to the one above and aim to do about 2 sets of 5. The second set will be a good indicator of if you are going to hit your desired time.
400M Repeats
Benefits
Mentally able to go faster. With the distance being only 400m, pushing through to maintain your speed for the interval is easier than a further distance.
VO2 Max Improvement
Lactate clearance
Weight Loss
Improved running economy
400M repeats are killer. This is a speed training workout if you are looking to start moving at a faster pace.
400M repeats can be run in a variety of ways but one method you can do is listed below. You want your rest to be around 50-100% of the repeat. I’m opting to have my rest be about 75% the time of the repeat at 1 minute.
Do a workout like this one with as many sets as desired. Typical set range would be from 2-5 sets.
There is a point of diminishing returns for speed training. The point of speed training is to get you running faster than you normally would. If you gas yourself and are running slow, you turned your speed workout into a conditioning workout.
Tempo Runs
Benefits
Improved pace
Improved cardiovascular health
Mental strength
Improve lactate clearance
Now that you’ve taken all that speed training in, you need to put it all together. This is where tempo runs come into play. If you’re reading this, you may be wondering, what is a tempo run? A tempo run is a run where you maintain a sustained moderate to hard pace for a set amount of time.
Tempo runs are important to incorporate. If you’re only doing interval training, how are you going to tie it all together? You need to do tempo runs. The pace of tempo runs can vary with your training goals. If you’re training for a 5K time, then your tempo runs may be 95% to 100% of your race day pace.
If you’re training for a 10K, then your pace might be a little slower than the 5K pace.
The point of a tempo run is to sustain the pace. You do not want to go burn yourself out of the gate. This is one of the challenging parts of tempo runs is because you’re not going to be burning yourself like you would in an interval workout. You will be uncomfortable but the lack of discomfort will be much duller and longer.
Usually in an interval workout, you know you only need to push for a few more seconds or minutes to get to your rest. In a tempo run, you may be trying to maintain your pace for 20-60 minutes. You will likely be uncomfortable the entire time. Heres an example of one of my tempo runs that I incorporate.
One word of advice I have for doing tempo runs is that if you feel great half way through the workout and want to increase the pace, try your best to not do it.
There have been plenty of times where you may think you can do it then 5 minutes into increasing your pace, you burn out. The point of the workout is to maintain a sustained pace. If you finish your workout and find that it was easy for you, just increase your pace next time. Try not to ruin your workout because your ego thinks that you can go faster and longer than you can.
Conclusion
Speed workouts can be fun but it’s important to know where to start. If you are a beginner, start off with doing simple workouts like 400m repeats or mile repeats. As you become more advanced and gain control of your pace, start adding in the layer of doing tempo runs.
Do speed workouts about 1 or 2 times a week. Your body needs to recover after doing these workouts and doing them everyday will not benefit you. In fact, it will probably hurt you instead.