How to Run Faster

How can you run faster? That sounds like such a simple question, but of course, the answer can be as simple or as complicated as you like. That’s why we like this answer from Karen Hancock, an endurance coach at London’s Serpentine Running Club. Hancock begins with the simplest advice:run faster by running faster, and ends with a graphic presentation of the relationship between lactate concentrations and speed in lactate-trained and lactate-untrained runners. Somewhere between those two explanatory extremes is an answer that makes sense for everyone. Basically, she tells us to push ourselves, when running, into the “uncomfortable” zone, and stay there as long as we can. How do we know when we’re uncomfortable? When we can no longer talk in more than a couple of words. Another great tip from Hancock: find some runners who are faster than you and keep up with them as long as you can. The next week, find them again and add five minutes to the time you keep up with them.