How to Run Faster and Longer (Week 1 - Day 2)

If you want to know how to run faster and longer then follow along because I'm about to show you how.

In this workout we'll focus on increasing the intensity of your intervals, challenging your body just a little bit more but not making things so difficult that you give up.

By the end of this workout you will be well on your way to improving your running speed.

The Workout

This workout is yet again only a mile long but you're welcome to scale things up if the distance you want to improve on is longer. This workout is also slightly harder than the last one (you jog twice as far), but it's still a pretty simple run.

All you're going to do is...

1. WALK a quarter mile
2. JOG a quarter mile
3. WALK a quarter mile
4. and JOG the last quarter mile

That's it! This time you'll be jogging half of the mile, but it's broken up into two parts so that it's still pretty easy. This workout doesn't seem scary enough to avoid, now does it?

Since I do the first workout on a Monday, this one is usually done on the following Wednesday. This gives you a little time to recoup and it ensures that it's easy to fit your workouts into your schedule. And if you're running every single day, it gets old pretty fast and skipping a run here and there doesn't seem like that big of a deal to you. So run every other day to ensure that you stick with the plan and your body is well rested.

And you'll also want to continue to resist breaking into a jog when you should be walking, so that you're get enough of a break in between your jogging intervals. So just walk, but walk fast! The first walking interval will be like a warm up and the second walking interval lets catch you breath before finishing out your run.

And even if you're feeling really good, you still want to keep at an easy jogging pace. For your first jogging interval you just want to enjoy your surroundings as you're jogging along. You should be able to carry on a conversation at this pace if you wanted to. But for your second jogging interval, I want you to pick a spot on the path where you can see the finish line.

This is going to be your "second wind" line. Mine's about a football field length away from the finish line. When you reach this point you're going to go ALL OUT! You're going to train yourself, when you're doing jogging or running intervals, to blast your way to the finish line and finish strong. So yes, once you reach the second wind line, you can break into an all out sprint if you have it in you. You're well on your way to learning how to run faster and longer!

Now it's time to show you what kind of progress you can expect by taking a peek at my personal progress with this run.

The first time I ran this it wasn't that fast of a time but it was a lot faster than Day 1's time. The second round through with this run I was able to drop 22 seconds off my time. And guess what? The third round through with this run I was able to drop 22 MORE seconds off my time! The 4th round through I didn't do as well but making progress is all about sticking to it and honing in on your diet and making sure that you're getting enough sleep. And the perseverance paid off because the 5th round through I was able to drop 1 minute and 2 seconds off my time! So with this run alone I have improved my running speed by 1 minute and 46 seconds.

When you see results like this it's been proven to boost your motivation and keep you chugging toward your goal. So run this the Wednesday after you ran the first workout, stick to the simple interval layout and don't forget to go all out when you cross the second wind line. Are you starting to understand how to run faster and longer?

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