By now you will have noted several of the main themes that weave through this book. They include the following: Simple is often best. Running is a low-tech sport. You don’t improve your fitness and performance with digital devices, diet “breakthroughs” that usually aren’t, or a closet full of the newest gear.
I’ve always gotten better results from KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
When it comes to strong, measurable road workouts, one of the most useful running routes is the out-and-back course. You start where you are and run to the mailbox. Or the 1-mile mark. Or whatever other goal you have set for yourself. Then you turn around and run back to your start point.
I have long used a series of out-and-back road courses to enhance my toughness and performance. Specifically, I cover the same course three weeks in a row. I run from Point A to Point B, and then turn around for the return to Point A. Each week I try to run a little faster on the return trip from Point B to Point A.
Most runners I know don’t like out-and-back courses. We tend to choose running routes that trace a circular or quadrangular path back to the starting point. We like new vistas. We don’t like retracing our steps.
But out-and-back courses have many advantages. They give security and confidence to beginning runners who crave familiar, close-to-home courses. When you are increasing distance, they make it easy to add small chunks at a time. You just run a few more blocks before turning around.
Best of all, at least in my view, they offer a simple yet excellent way to improve your pace. Here’s how I do it. I begin with a long, relaxed warm-up of 2 to 4 miles to my selected turnaround point. I don’t time the first half of my run. It’s not really important.
I concentrate on reaching the turnaround feeling loose and comfortable. Then, on the return, I start running harder. Now I time myself. The goal is to complete this run three weeks in a row, always with a faster return trip.
Start slow, finish faster: When you’re doing out-and-back speed, job one is keeping the first half of your run slow. Don’t feel guilty about it. The warm-up is a key part of the run. It provides the foundation for all that follows. You have to go slow enough that you can run quite a bit faster on your return. That’s job two.
Return fast, faster, and faster yet: When I do my first out-and-back in a series, I know that two more will follow. I also know that I’ll try to run the three return legs in a sequence of increasing effort. That is, I’ll aim for hard, then harder, then harder still. With this in mind, I can mentally gauge the efforts required.
On week one I’ll run comfortably fast—at a controlled tempo pace. I should finish tired but invigorated. On week two I’ll kick it up a notch, but not so much that I’m gasping for breath at the end. On week three I dig deeper. I don’t run at race pace—not quite—but I push to about a 90 or 95 percent effort.
The week-two and week-three runs are the ones that produce big fitness payoffs. But the first is also important. It gets the ball rolling.
Keep track of time: I always time the return run closely. I want to be able to see that my increasing efforts produce a positive outcome. That builds confidence. The out-and-back speed run trains both body and mind.
My body feels the increased effort coming back, and adapts over several weeks. My mind registers the improvement on my watch. It accepts that something even better and faster is possible if I should decide to race soon. Seeing is believing.
I can’t give you a precise formula for the three faster return runs. Individual runners, and their favorite course distances and topographies, are too variable for that. But here’s a guideline for the second 3 miles of a 6-mile out-and-back speed run. Run marathon effort or slightly faster on week one, half-marathon effort on week two, and 10K effort on week three.