Speed Work for People who Hate Doing Speed Work

 

Speed work can be painful.

You are hunched over, huffing and puffing. And even when you're going as fast as you possibly can, there is always going to be some elitist randos out there who will dismiss your effort as "slow."  There are some unsavory corners of the running community that are still very "high school" and the last thing you want to do is re-visit those nightmares.

What if I told you that not everyone does speed work to get faster? That it doesn't have to be painful? 

Here's why you should consider doing speed work:

If you spend too much time at one pace your brain will learn to only activate only muscle fibers necessary to keep going at that pace. All the other muscle fibers won't get any stimulus and won't be familiar with being activated. On long enough runs, the first stringers will eventually get tired and when the brain looks for the second string, no one on the bench will be ready to go in. The result? Your pace and perceived effort will both suffer on the tail end of longer efforts. 

To combat this, we need to provide stimulus to all the muscles in your legs. And to do this we need to include all different sorts of paces in our workouts. We already know the slow twitch fibers are going to get their reps in during the easy paces. So when we mix in work for the fast twitch fibers, they’ll be much happier and will be ready for game time.

But it's not an “on/off” switch for the first/second stringers. Your brain will be more familiar with the fast twitch fibers and will rotate them in and out with the slow twitch guys much more generously. So now, not only will your normal pace feel easier, but your legs will feel fresher for way longer.

How I Learned to love Tolerate Speed Work:

I spent years avoiding speed work. Too painful. I told myself I was allergic to the track. I called it a human hamster wheel. 

I didn't want to end up like one of those elitist runbros chasing arbitrary numbers. I convinced myself that volume is king and building a massive aerobic base is what I needed to do well. 

All these things are still true. But what was *also* true is that ignoring speed was undermining my growth as a runner. Running fast doesn't just get you faster. It also helps you get farther. Let me explain. 

In the past few months of actually including speed work, it's been a game changer for me. I dedicated 8 weeks doing 5k specific work, then another 8 weeks doing more half marathon specific work. And now I'm currently dialing in my marathon pace for the Vernonia Marathon in 2 weeks. Compared to 5k pace or at about 6:30 min/miles, my marathon pace -- almost 2 minutes/mile slower -- feels almost like a shuffle to me now. Which is what it *should* feel like. I wouldn't have been able dial in my current marathon pace without investing in a little speed work. (I still hate the track)

How To Do Speed Work Without Hating It:

The part you hate most about doing speed work? Probably the part about being hunched over and being out of breath? The feeling of hanging on for dear life because you need to hit a pace for a whole mile?

Here's what we can do: just skip all that part. You don't want to feel like hanging on for dear life while trying to finish a lap or whatever? I don't like feeling like that either. The solution is to stop before it gets too hard. That's it. that's the whole trick. Let’s get into three ways we can accomplish speed work without wanting to die: 

Strides -  you start from 0, then accelerate up to almost a full sprint. And here's the key: the second you hit top speed, slow back down to a full stop again. The whole thing is over in less than 15 seconds. It's over so quickly, your heart and lungs probably didn't even register the need to work any harder. And that's the goal. Your muscles and central nervous system are getting a workout without overly taxing your body.

Most running plans will include 4-6 strides at the end of one or two runs per week. That's it!

Fartleks - Fundamentally the same thing as strides except you don't want to be told what to do. You pick a random landmark, you send it for a while, then you slow back down whenever you feel like it. That's it.

Personally I prefer fartleks not just because the word sounds funny (it means "speedplay" in Swedish. I guess it can also mean "fart" too if you do fartleks hard enough), but also because I just can't have too much structure in my running. It's more fun to surge from one random sign to another random light post on my normal neighborhood route vs doing circles around a track. I literally don't want to go out of my way to find a track.

200 meter repeats - Yes I know I just said I don't love track work. But 200m repeats are genuinely beneficial. 200m is still a short enough distance to slow down and stop before it gets too hard. Including these repeats every week will compound and stack and  improve your running in ridiculous ways. 

Please humor me as I do a little math. Lets say you can do 200m repeat in 45 seconds. That's 6 minute mile pace! If you do something like 4 repeats a week and you keep it up for 3 months, then you will have run basically a 5k at 6 minute mile pace, but without the impact of actually running a continuous 5k at that pace. That's massive. 

Now you also have a massive 200 meter kick in your back pocket. If you're feeling good during the last stretch of a race, you can throw down those last 200 meters like it's nobody's business and feel like a million bucks as you cross the finish line. 

Speed work doesn't have to be painful. You don't need to be huffing and puffing. You can skip all that and still get a ton of benefit from it. 

So there’s your toolkit. Three methods to do speed work without the suffering. But before you full send it on the track, recall the immortal words of Master Kenobi: "calm down, Anakin!"

Don’t get too impulsive. Start with one method. Don’t do everything at once. The entire idea of speed work is to pack it up right when you've gotten into the groove. You’re SUPPOSED to feel good about it. That feeling is exactly what we’re after. Speed work is as much about vibes as it is about numbers. Doing 20 reps isn’t worth it if it feels like a grind and sours the mood.

That good vibe is what’s going to make you want to go again next week. Remember the feeling, and save it for next time. A little speed work goes a long ways.

Easy running still needs to be the foundation of your work. If you run too hard on too many days, you'll start undermining your aerobic base and your injury risk begins to skyrocket. Keep it light, keep it fresh, and stay on the light side of the force.

That's all I got for you today. Now go run.