HTRF

• Lunges: These exercises target your quads, hamstrings, and glutes, which are crucial for running power.
• Deadlifts: Strengthen your posterior chain, including your hamstrings, glutes, and lower back.
• Core Workouts: Planks, Russian twists, and leg raises help stabilize your core, which is vital for maintaining good running form.
• Plyometrics: Exercises like box jumps, jump squats, and burpees improve your explosive power and agility.

Incorporating these advanced training techniques into your routine can help you break through plateaus and reach new levels of running performance. Remember to always listen to your body and adjust your training as needed to avoid overtraining and injuries.

How to Run Faster AND Longer Without Getting Tired

Endurance runners need to learn to maintain their speed for longer distances. While you’ll likely always be tired by the end of a fast, long run, you can train your muscles and heart to deal with the fatigue better.

Learning how to run faster and longer without getting tired doesn’t really require a difference in training. Still, practice your strides and tempo run, and then pour lots of energy into your Z1 and Z2 easy runs.

Doing this consistently over weeks, months, and years helps you build the aerobic base you need to run faster and longer without getting tired.

There’s no magic pill or special workout—it’s all about consistency. What’s hard today becomes easy (or easier) tomorrow. Keep training, prioritize recovery, and avoid injuries. These are the not-so-secret sauces to building your endurance and speed.

Building a Strong Aerobic Base

1. Gradual Increase in Mileage:
To safely build endurance, increase your weekly running distance by no more than 10%. This gradual progression allows your body to adapt without the risk of injury, ensuring consistent improvement in your endurance capabilities.

2. Long, Slow Distance Runs (LSD):
LSD runs are vital for enhancing mitochondrial density and capillary networks, crucial for endurance. These runs, performed at a comfortable pace, improve your body’s efficiency in utilizing oxygen and fuel over long distances.

3. Incorporate Tempo Runs:
Tempo runs, characterized by sustained effort, are essential for teaching your body to maintain a faster pace over longer periods. Integrating these into your routine involves running at a challenging yet manageable pace for a set duration, effectively bridging the gap between speed and endurance training.

Mental Toughness and Focus

1. Mindfulness and Visualization:
Mental preparation is as crucial as physical training. Visualization and mindfulness can significantly boost performance. Regularly practicing visualizing yourself successfully completing races, maintaining speed and endurance, can prepare your mind to face the actual challenges of long-distance running.

2. Overcoming Mental Barriers:
Breaking down a long run into smaller segments makes the task less intimidating. Set mini-goals or milestones within your run and focus on reaching one segment at a time. This approach helps manage mental fatigue and keeps motivation levels high throughout the run.

3. Maintaining Focus:
Staying focused during long runs is crucial. Mindful running techniques, such as concentrating on your breathing, the rhythm of your steps, or the surrounding environment, can help keep your mind engaged and prevent it from dwelling on fatigue or discomfort.

Specific Training Methods

1. Interval Training:
Interval training, involving alternating between high-intensity bursts and recovery periods, is pivotal for enhancing both speed and endurance. By stressing your cardiovascular system in short, intense bursts, you increase your aerobic capacity, allowing you to maintain a faster pace for longer durations during races.

2. Hill Workouts:
Hill training is a powerful tool for building leg strength, improving running economy, and boosting cardiovascular fitness. Running up hills challenges your muscles and heart, enabling you to develop the power and stamina needed to maintain speed on varied terrains over long distances.

3. Strength and Flexibility Training:
A balanced routine of strength and flexibility exercises, targeting the core, legs, and upper body, supports efficient running form and enhances endurance. Incorporating exercises like squats, lunges, planks, and stretches into your routine strengthens key muscle groups and increases flexibility, reducing the risk of injuries and improving overall running performance.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why is it so difficult to run fast?

When you push your body to its limit, it reacts physiologically in defense response to the discomfort of running fast. These reactions can come in the form of oxygen deficit, inefficient muscle-fiber recruitment, a build-up of lactic acid, a feeling that your legs are on fire (!!!) and effort overload for your brain.

Though these are natural reactions for your body, there are ways to train the body and mind to handle the discomfort of reaching new speeds and adapting to harder efforts.

So, what can you do to run faster?

Improving your speed is not as simple as just running faster. There are many small changes that can be implemented into your training to run faster. Follow these workouts and exercises designed to make you a faster, stronger runner—and stick to the 8 tips we mentioned above to learn how to run fast consistently.

How to run longer?

Most athletes don’t want to just know how to run faster—they want to know how to run faster longer. First, avoid injury. Injuries will set back your speed and distance. Next, follow the training workouts, exercises, and techniques above—they’ll help you build up consistent, reliable strength and form that’ll help you run faster throughout a 5K or an ultramarathon.

What muscles make you run faster?

Great question. Running fast incorporates a range of muscles, and these are the same muscles responsible for slow running, hiking, and even walking:

• Calves
• Quads
• Hamstrings
• Glutes
• Feet
• Core

You will feel the different emphasis on certain muscles when you push the pace. For example, when you do sprints or tempo runs, you’ll likely feel increased tension on your hamstrings. Training these muscles to endure heavier loads will prepare you for faster efforts.

Mix And Match!

How you get faster at running is up to you. Use some or all of these strategies in your training schedule to see great results in your 5K pace and longer-distance race times—from cross-country to long-distance running.

Now that you’re at the finish line, take a minute to download our app and find a workout to boost your running pace. Audio workouts, follow-along videos, help from the coaches, and more tips on how to run faster all await you in the app!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why is it so difficult to run fast?

When you push your body to its limit, it reacts physiologically in defense response to the discomfort of running fast. These reactions can come in the form of oxygen deficit, inefficient muscle-fiber recruitment, a build-up of lactic acid, a feeling that your legs are on fire (!!!) and effort overload for your brain.

Though these are natural reactions for your body, there are ways to train the body and mind to handle the discomfort of reaching new speeds and adapting to harder efforts.

So, what can you do to run faster?

Improving your speed is not as simple as just running faster. There are many small changes that can be implemented into your training to run faster. Follow these workouts and exercises designed to make you a faster, stronger runner—and stick to the 8 tips we mentioned above to learn how to run fast consistently.

How to run longer?

Most athletes don’t want to just know how to run faster—they want to know how to run faster longer. First, avoid injury. Injuries will set back your speed and distance. Next, follow the training workouts, exercises, and techniques above—they’ll help you build up consistent, reliable strength and form that’ll help you run faster throughout a 5K or an ultramarathon.

What muscles make you run faster?

Great question. Running fast incorporates a range of muscles, and these are the same muscles responsible for slow running, hiking, and even walking:

• Calves
• Quads
• Hamstrings
• Glutes
• Feet
• Core

You will feel the different emphasis on certain muscles when you push the pace. For example, when you do sprints or tempo runs, you’ll likely feel increased tension on your hamstrings. Training these muscles to endure heavier loads will prepare you for faster efforts.

Mix And Match!

How you get faster at running is up to you. Use some or all of these strategies in your training schedule to see great results in your 5K pace and longer-distance race times—from cross-country to long-distance running.

Now that you’re at the finish line, take a minute to download our app and find a workout to boost your running pace. Audio workouts, follow-along videos, help from the coaches, and more tips on how to run faster all await you in the app!