How Speed Work makes everything else easier.

I don’t know why, but it does.

What am I talking about now?  Why all this ranting about speed work?  Speed work this! Speed work that!  Get over it Chris.

No I won’t.  It’s important.

I know the majority of runners these days are just out there for the health and experience.  I know it’s counter-cultural and idiotic for an old guy like me to be down at the track gutting out 800’s and 1600’s for no good reason.  It’s a down right public nuisance when I’m beating the crap out of a treadmill in the office gym, breathing like a wildebeest in heat and throwing off rooster tails of sweat while the public just wants to walk.

When Oscar Wilde said “The position is ridiculous, the pleasure is fleeting and the results are damnable” he wasn’t talking about speedwork, but he could have been…

All I can tell you is that it makes a difference.

I was out on a long run on Sunday with the club and I could feel the strength and pop of just a couple weeks of speedwork in my legs.  My resting pace has gotten faster in just a couple weeks.  That’s why it matters.

It matters because it works.

It also matters because very few people will do it.  That gives you the advantage.  The vast majority of runners will whine about how they aren’t fast and they just do it for fun and they get injured easily so they have to take it easy.  They won’t do the hard work.

Therefore, if you do the hard work you will have an advantage.

“Somewhere out there someone is training when you are not. If you race him, he will win.”  Tom Fleming had that taped to his wall to remind him to do the hard work.

If you have never done speedwork I can take 10 minutes off your 5K, 20 minutes off your 10K and 40 minutes off your marathon.  Absolutely.  Guaranteed.

Running well in a race is not about shoes or dietary supplements or the latest exercise routine.  It is and always has been about doing the work and if you want to race fast you have to train fast.

Speedwork specifically moves the needle on your pace.  What do I mean by that?  We all have a set-point pace where we are comfortable.  Speedwork moves that set point.  A body at rest will remain at rest until acted on by a force. Speed work is that force that moves your body off that resting point.

You will feel it in your easy runs.  The day after a speed session I’ll notice that my ‘resting’ pace is noticeably faster.  I’ve changed my body’s assumptions.  I‘ve changed my body’s frame of reference by injecting a counter force.  That force is speedwork.

Like any other tool speed will only help so much.  You’ll get big gains starting about 3 weeks into a consistent practice but the gains will peter out after a couple months.  Your body has a limit and your pace can only get so much faster.  Eventually you’ll bump up against your natural speed limit.

Being in ‘speed shape’ is hard to maintain as well.  It takes consistent practice to keep that edge.  You quickly lose the speed and reset to a slower pace when you stop.  You lose it frustratingly faster than you gained it.

Even so the residual effects of speedwork are twofold.  First, you will retain some of the pace and mechanical efficiency of the speedwork practice.  That’s right.  After your exert that force nad move the system off its set point it will never fully return.  The system is changed forever.

Second, and maybe more importantly, you’ll retain the knowledge that you are capable of running fast.  You’ll know the art of the possible.  This removes the mental barrier that most recreational runners have towards speedwork and racing.

I know it’s overwhelming.  I’m going to make it simple for you.  One speed work session a week.  That’s it.  Just commit to throwing some speed into one session a week.  I don’t care if you’re running 15 miles a week or 50.

How much? How fast?  That’s a hard question because I don’t know your pace and experience.  Instead I’ll put it this way.  You want to warm up well.  Then accelerate to a pace that feels like a 4 on a scale of 1-5.  I want you to hold that pace for 3-5 minutes.  Recover and do it 4 times.  Don’t forget to cool down and don’t forget to stretch.

Here’s how it will unfold.  Depending on what kind of shape you’re in it will take 30 – 60 seconds for your body to figure out what you’re doing.

I find I don’t even start breathing hard until I get a minute or more in.

Then your body is going to figure out you’re up to something awful and your mind and body will panic.

It will start to get hard.  First you’ll notice your breathing getting hard and your heart working.  Accept this and take full abdominal breaths and blow them out.  Don’t gasp or pant.  Breathe deeply in and blow it out.  Relax your form with the breath.

Around 1:30 to 2 minutes in your body and mind are going to make an effort to convince you to stop.  You’ll feel like you can’t continue to hold the pace.  You’ll be struggling.

Your brain will start saying things like “Maybe today’s not your day.” Or “It’s probably that you didn’t eat a good breakfast.” Anything your mind can think of that would give you a rational reason to stop.  Then your subconscious will get in on the act and start manufacturing symptoms from your dinosaur brain.  All of a sudden you’ll feel like you’re going to throw up, or like you have to go to the bathroom, or like you’re getting a cramp.

When this happens you should smile.  Because this is the point right before your body and mind give up trying to stop you.  If you push through this hard bit 2-3 minutes in it actually gets easier.  The discomfort and erroneous body signals will come in waves as your body and mind keep trying to get you to stop but you will realize that you don’t have to listen.

This is a great lesson for you.  All those signals, all that discomfort, is nothing more than a feeling.  You can choose whether to accept those feelings or not.  This is where you learn strength.  With practice it gets easier.  Add that to the reasons everyone should do speedwork; it teaches you mental and physical strength. It makes you a master of your machine.

In practice you are not ‘battling through the pain’ or ‘pushing’ or ‘fighting’.  The masters don’t fight.  They accept.  They notice these signals for what they are and relax into the effort.

The final phase of your speedwork interval is the home stretch. You have gotten through the hard discomfort in the middle.  Now you just hold your form to the end.  The last part is the easiest because you know you have it licked.

As the seconds tick down on your speed interval you’ll be filled with the joy of having conquered to beasts of pain and fear.

Then you jog for 3 minutes to recover.

Then you do it again.