How do I improve my run times?

Factual Questions
1

Truth is, I suck at running. Always have. Even in the Army, I could never get much faster than a 7-minute mile. And now that I’m 36 and only started running again (well, jogging, to be honest) about 5 months ago, I seem to be hitting a ceiling at about a 10-minute mile. My goal is to get to 2 miles in 17 minutes or under.

The problem has always been my cardiovascular endurance; my leg muscle endurance is fine. I swear I must have tiny lungs. (It doesn’t seem that I have exercised-induced asthma, as I have very few symptoms of it, beyond simply being winded.) I’ve tried “belly breathing” techniques, but those seem to get me winded more quickly.

A few websites, articles, and Anonymous Internet Experts have suggested that it’s all a matter of slowly building up c/v fitness (maybe 5 months is too short to expect any real improvements?), and that interval training is the best way to increase speed and endurance. ie, Periodic, high-intensity sprinting with longer stretches of normal-speed jogging.

What say Doper runners? Any other training techniques that might help me?

2

I jog a couple days a week at lunchtime at work. Usually 6 to 7 miles per run.

To each his own, but I don’t care about speed; running against a clock stresses me out and makes the experience unenjoyable. I just jog at a steady and comfortable pace. To “build myself up,” I will run for a longer distance or run up hills. Would like to get up to 10 miles/run by mid autumn.

I know my response doesn’t answer your question, but I just wanted to give my perspective as a fellow jogger.

3

Very few, but not none? I only say this because I thought I was over the exercise induced asthma I had as a teen (now I’m 36). Then I had a spirometry test a few months ago before getting fit-tested for a respirator at work and while I passed, the results suggested I might have some constriction in the smaller airways. The doc suggested I see my primary about getting an inhaler. I haven’t had a chance to try it out with straight running yet, but I borrowed my daughter’s before a softball game last week and it seemed to make a difference running around the field.

4

Interval training is the way to go. But, you should only do it like once or twice a week. You still need to build your cardio endurance. If you want to be fast at a certain distance then you have to run and train at a longer distance than your goal. AND at a slower pace.

5

How much are you running now? Miles? Pace? Frequency?

I’d guess you’re running too little, too fast.

Sorta. You need a solid base of miles on your legs. Speed work is generally the fastest way to an injury. Most authors I’ve read limit speed work to 10% of your weekly mileage. If you run 30 miles a week, 3 of them can be at speed. And that’s a max!

Endurance takes time to gain. Lots of time. (Fortunately it takes a while to go away too!)

6

The very first thing I would advise would be to talk to your doctor about this before you try any more. Try to find a doctor who is also a runner. :smiley:

I ran almost every day for 20 years (started at age 47) and ran scores of 5K and 10K races, and ten marathons(in my 50s and 60s). When I started (because I saw evidence of a pot belly starting), I tried to do a mile. I did it, but thought I was going to die afterward.

Anyway, I kept at it and got hooked. I ran LSD (Long Slow Distance) for my training runs, at about 8 min/mile. The trick was to build an endurance base, so I kept to that pace for a month or two,and then started to increase the length of my runs.

Eventually I got up to 80 miles a week, with a 20-mile run once a week.

When I started racing, I knew I had to increase my speed, so started incorporating intervals into my runs every couple of days. This means once you are warmed up after a couple of miles, try an all-out sprint for a minute or two, then go back to slow running until you recover, then try another, etc. You have to be very careful not to overdo this. Let you body tell you. If the next day you are still weary, pull back.

There are many books and even magazines that are worth reading for beginning runners, so check the library. Try to see if there is an amateur track club around. Go and talk to some of those guys.

Hill running has the same effect as intervals, and may be more fun. Some guys go to a stadium and run up and down the stairs from the field to the top. Several times. That never sounded like much fun to me.

If you find you do not enjoy the work required to increase your speed, then forget it and just enjoy jogging. It is relatively easy to increase the length of your runs. It is good to alternate long and short run days.

7

I only run 3 - 4 times per week, 2 miles each time. (So that’s 6 - 8 miles per week.) My pace is usually around 5.5mph, or 11 minutes a mile, though I can occasionally do 6mph/10min miles.

Others Dopers here seem to concur with your too-little, too-fast analysis (even though my pace is relatively very slow). I’ll try focusing on length and endurance for a while, with just a wee little bit of sprinting thrown in.

8

If you want to improve your times, 2 miles isn’t enough. Try to get up to 5. In that process, I bet your 2 mile times will improve a great deal.

9

Solid start! It’s more than I started with (faster too).
My recommendations (offered freely – feel free to dismiss!):

  1. don’t worry about speed just yet.
  2. pick one day a week to extend the run by a half mile. So… 2, 2, 2, 2.5. The next week, extend it another half-mile. 2, 2, 2, 3. Easy does it. See how that feels. Definitely do not push the pace on that longer day!
  3. from there, pick another day to extend, 2, 2.5, 2, 3. Then maybe 2, 3, 2, 4.

(general rule is don’t add more than 10% a week - mileage wise. That obviously don’t work if you start running from 0 miles a week so you can fudge it at the beginning. The idea is: start slowly and don’t over do it.)

  1. Eventually (probably not in 2011!) you’ll end up with something like 3,6,3,9. A pretty solid week.

Enter a 5K race now and again. You won’t be last. I promise.

Then you’ll start thinking about marathons, ultras, running across the US…

I bet that even if you keep running at an easy pace, you’ll end up running faster anyway. The easy pace will just become faster. The increased miles results in increased endurance which results in the ability to maintain a faster pace for longer. Plus as the weather cools you’ll probably run faster anyway. Heat and humidity are pace killers.

If you keep the miles the same you’ll plateau and stop improving. You may be in that situation now.

Mix up your run routes. Running around the block gets old and boring (plus your neighbors might start to call the cops after you pass their house for the 20th time).

Oh, and find a friend or two to run with if you can.

Remember, it’s fun, even when it’s not :slight_smile:

10

Thanks for those suggestions, Mobius. Very helpful and encouraging! :slight_smile:

I’ll give them a try.

11

Too early in your career to do speed type intervals. You can do walk/run for the longer distances, gradually decreasing the walk breaks.

This is the basis for the Couch to 5K program.

We’ve a number of Dopers who have completed the program.

MobiousStripes gives excellent advice.

12

This is likely either going to be a “well, duh” no-help answer or a breakthrough, but given that it was the latter for me I can’t help but pass it along:

Cadence.

A blog called “Science-based running”, which I guess I’m sort of taking at face value because it sounds like it makes sense and it says it’s science-based, says that cadence plays a big role in running. I’d never even considered it before.

Basically, it’s how many steps you take in a given period of time. I’d always concentrated on longer strides. But given an equal stride length, someone who takes more steps in a given period will be faster than someone who takes fewer.

The blog suggests counting steps taken by one foot in 20 seconds. The blog suggests that a cadence of 180 is what you should be shooting for, which equals counting to 30 steps with one foot over 20 seconds.

Perhaps it was having a discrete goal, perhaps it was having something to concentrate on, perhaps it was actually the magic number, but once I started paying attention to taking more steps in a shorter amount of time, I improved my times considerably.

Blog posts:
http://sciencebasedrunning.com/2011/07/the-basics-cadence/
http://sciencebasedrunning.com/2011/07/cadence-and-injuries-once-more-with-science/

13

This isn’t necessarily a training technique, but you might consider lighter shoes if you’re only looking to improve your run time and not necessarily increase cardio fitness overall. I had a similar problem in the Army myself, and being a Cav scout the NCO’s were fanatical about PT. I was barely passing my run with 15:30, so I switched from bulky cross trainers to a really light, springy shoe designed for long-distance running and subsequently shaved a minute off my two mile. They may have only been a couple ounces lighter, but those ounces add up fast. Plus you can use heavy shoes to train and light shoes to compete.