Training and how a beginner can get faster

Yesterday I ran 6 miles. The schedule said to run 7 but I rebelled. Ok, I didn't rebel :) I ran 9 miles instead of 8 Monday so I felt I had the liberty to cut the mileage short today. It was a good thing I did because I have started to have this recurring tightness in my inside thigh, groin area, after my speed workout. I started feeling it at various times during my easy run. I've had this type of thing before and usually I just took my speed workouts off until it resolved itself. I'll have to see how it works itself out. On other fronts my achilles feels better and doesn't bother me running or walking around anymore. I have been stretching it out and had been icing it as well. Back to my 6 mile, it was a mixed bag. On the one hand my legs felt great and strong and felt like they wanted to move fast but I had to make a conscious effort to run slowly because of the inner thigh, groin, tightness coming now and again. All in all I did 6 miles at about 7:45 pace.

A coworker at my job asked me for the 2nd or 3rd time how she can run faster. I guess the first 2 times I didn't answer her question well enough. I think its a question most runners have. Very few runners are content with how fast they run. So I in turn asked her why she wanted to run faster. Her reply was that she was competitive and her main competitor was herself. Wow, doesn't this sound familiar, I am one of my fiercest competitors. So then I asked her another question, what distance does she want to get faster in. Is it the 100m, 400m, 5k, etc? She said she did 1 loop around Memorial regularly and does about 12 miles a week. Ok, so she wanted to be faster in distance running, cool I have a little bit of experience with that. This is what I basically told her to hopefully answer the question a little better than I did the first 2 times. In order for her to get better she is going to have figure out what her training paces are. She can do this by running a 5k race. She's in luck because there are many going on at this time. She should run it like a race. She will be able to figure out what her basic level of fitness is after this race. Then she can go to sites like the Mcmillan Running Calculator, or just add 90 seconds to her 5k pace. So if she ran an 8 minute mile in her 5k then she would train at 9:30 pace during her easy runs. After figuring out the training pace, another good idea is to increase your mileage by 10 percent for 3 or 4 weeks and then drop it back down during the following week. For example if you are running less than 10 miles a week then just add 1 mile a week. Then drop it back down a few miles during your "recovery" week. You'll need the recovery week before you start increasing your miles again. By increasing your mileage alone you will start to get faster because of the economy of efficiency you'll start to gain in your running form. Also the longer you run you will gain functional strength in your legs. You must not increase your mileage too fast or run too fast or you will increase your chances for injury and this would only impede your progress. You want to be running consistently for a long period of time. I told my coworker that distance running training is a strategic sport and not a tactical one. No one workout is going to be the answer or the one that puts you over the hump. It's just the slow repetition and buildup of many miles of running. My coworker said she was disappointed, because she was a very impatient person and wanted to get faster quickly. I didn't know how to respond to that other than to tell her to fight that urge if she truly wanted be a better runner without burning out.

The previous ideas were only a VERY basic idea of how to begin to get faster as a pure BEGINNER. There were other things I left out like hill work, track sessions, tempo runs, finding a coach or joining a running group. I also left nutrition out of the equation which plays a major part of performance in running. Hydration, part of nutrition, has a major impact in performance. I could go on and on and on but this post would be more like a book than a simple post. Well anyway, I have to get ready for my long run.

Cheers,

Bill