PART TWO

Running Faster: 63 Tips to Help Build Your Speed, Even If You’re Never Going to Race

All other things being equal, pretty much all runners would like to be faster. Wouldn’t you? Even if you have no plans to race in the next however long, the thought of being faster than you currently are probably has more appeal than the thought of being slower than you currently are.

Of course, if you do plan to race, then wanting to go faster is a given. You want to know what to do in your daily training to be able to cover a given distance in less time, and you want to know what to do on race day to run as fast as you’re capable of that day.

That’s what the tips in this chapter are about. We’ll look at the main types of workouts that make you faster, as well as how to best build those workouts into your training, how to race to best make use of your fitness, and other things you can do to get faster. We’ll also look at some of the mental aspects of running faster. First, though, let’s start with why all runners should do regular fast running.