1364 QT Simplify Your Speed Work, Maximize the Impact

0:00You finished the workout and you wrecked. You're just, you're a sweaty mess. Your gasman for breath. Like, I hope that was as good for them as it was for me type of scenario. ["Sweetheart's Great Tip"] It was a 1364. This run's ready. It was a quick tip episode. It was a quick tip. So you're suggesting to simplify your speed work. Let's talk about speed work today, shall we? I've talked on a few times, touched on a few times, get questions on it in the Q&As somewhat regularly. But, you know, in an effort at relatively full transparency, it's not something I've done a lot of until this year. At least not in the recent past. And I didn't go back and completely fact check everything. But if we looked at my running from, I don't know, certainly from 2020 through 2025,

1:00probably even a little bit longer than that, 2018 maybe, 2019, something like that. I've probably averaged, again, only through 2025, maybe five proper speed workouts a year, maybe 10, at the most, and probably not average 10. Like probably 10 was like the high water mark for any one year in that period. I don't know, maybe there was a year I did one a month. But the point is, speed work has not been a real regular part of my training routine for much of the last, and again, not counting 2026, but before 2026, for much of the last five, six, eight years, something like that. And if you, I know some of you've been listening that long and you've heard me talk about heart rate training, the value of running, running easy and racing fast. And I still believe that I still stand by it. I don't think I've ever said, and fact check me where I'm wrong,

2:04but I don't think I've ever said that I thought speed work is a bad thing, because I don't, right? Speed work is valuable. It's, it's maybe not massively valuable for getting faster for those of us that aren't trying to train for like 100 meter dash, you know, training for five Ks, 10 Ks, half s fulls, all treasurers, if you've got time goals, you're trying to get faster. Speed work can, can help, but like your top end speed, realistically, doesn't really matter in any of those endurance races, right? It just, it just doesn't. We can talk about it more at another time, if you're interested, but like that's just, that's just the simple physiology of the situation. But speed work can still be good for, improving your cadence, working on running form, certainly for bone health, tendon health, getting your muscles to fire, so some, some mind body connections, like there's still plenty of reasons that speed work would be valuable. And I just didn't do it, right? And again, I wasn't trying to say that it wasn't important.

3:06It just wasn't important to me. I was focused on really building my base. And I do think that there's something to be said for having a good solid foundation before you get into too much speed work. But I think if you go back and you check the tape, I probably said a few times, I should be doing more speed work. And for whatever reason, I couldn't be bothered to do so. So that's the quick backstory, but just, just put my cards on the table, right? Telling it like it is. And I don't remember exactly why, but for some reason, heading into this year, I just, I got a little B in my bonnet, right? And decided that this was the year I'm gonna make speed work a regular part of my routine. And I set a goal for 35 speed workouts, high intensity training sessions for the year, which you don't need to be a math quiz to realize that's like three per month, right? So I don't even have to do one every week to hit the target. And as of recording this, release on September 11th,

4:06recording on September the 10th. So far this year, I have done 30. 30 of my goal, 35 speed workouts. So like we're getting there, right? We're, you know, good Lord willing, some fluke injury doesn't happen. Probably gonna blow past 35. Like I'll probably end up with 40, maybe 45 speed workouts for the year. So mission accomplished, right? So based on the fact that I've more or less been doing speed workouts every week this year, just wanted to share a couple of thoughts, a couple of things that to me, for me, are kind of, I don't wanna say common sense, but like, yeah, okay. But based on some questions that I've had over the years, based on some questions I have from folks that I coach, may not be as straightforward to everyone as they seem to be to me, right?

5:08So maybe these are things you have questions with. Maybe there are things that you've struggled with as it relates to speed workouts and, you know, kind of incorporating the quote unquote, best speed workout for you into your routine. And sharing this with the goal of hopefully helping make the process of choosing the speed workouts that you're doing a little bit more straightforward, a little bit less heming and hon, and just like, pick something, let's go, let's execute, let's have fun with it, and see the benefits. And I am, honestly, transparently, feel like I'm seeing benefits after 30 speed sessions so far this year. Like, it's, there are benefits there, right? I'm feeling stronger, running better. My math tests are seeming to improve, and probably part of that is because I push it about once a week, right? So kind of building some of that VO2 max type of situation. Like, there's definitely benefits to doing a speed workout

6:09on a regular basis. And again, I don't think I've ever questioned that. I just didn't put it into practice as much as I could have now I am. So here are a few, a few topics, we go through three areas where I think people kind of get in their own way, or maybe overthink, maybe that's a better way of saying it. Maybe it might be likely to overthink that hopefully we can stop overthinking and just start executing and make things happen on the speed workouts for you. So the first thing, what is the best speed workout? Variety type name workout, you know, some of those details, what's the best speed workout? How much variety should I do? Should I just have one type of speed workout and do it over and over again? Should I try to never do the same speed workout twice? Like, like, you know, how do I decide what speed workouts to do? On the one hand, I was coming into this thinking like, yeah, you know, you really don't need that much variety, right? I think you've talked to most of the folks that I coach. I think I've got probably, and there's gonna be an outlier here there,

7:11but in general, there's like, there's like probably five or six speed workouts that I'm regularly assigning folks to do. And most folks probably don't even get all five or six, right? But based on preferences, based on some other things that we'll talk about as we go, you know, I've kind of learned that for some folks, you know, these are like the three or four best speed workouts for them and there's a little bit of overlap, but there's also this other one that works better for somebody else. And I kind of just rotate through those speed workouts that people execute well and that people are, you know, understand how to do it, how to pace them, how to put the right effort in, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I was kind of thinking, yeah, that's probably what my speed workouts have looked like as well. And then I look back at my little spreadsheet, my little graph, if you will, of speed workouts that I've done this year. And like, I think I counted 14 different speed workouts out of 30. I didn't think I was gonna have that many, quite honestly. But then I looked at them a little bit closer. And like without boring you with all the details,

8:12there's basically like three types of speed workouts that I've done, right? I did one fast finish long run, which is a little bit different than what you might think of as a speed workout, but it's definitely more intense. So I counted it, but that's where I did, I don't remember what the exact details were. Let's say I did 15 miles that day. I probably did nine or 10 of them at my just normal, easy long run pace. And then probably pushed those last five or six miles, it's something like whether half marathon pace, marathon pace, something that was more intense than what I would normally do for a long run. It wasn't a maximum effort by any stretch, but solid, solid intensity, right? More so than normal. So it counts as a speed workout. But that's one type of hard workout, speed workout. And I only did that one once, right? And then there are a couple of times that I did about like mile intervals, or maybe just one time that did like mile repeats. I don't think I've done anything where the workout has all been more than a mile, other than mile repeats. But then there was another one or two workouts,

9:13where I had some longer intervals, or maybe I had one mile repeat and then worked down from there, or maybe I had a couple with it, were longer and a couple that were shorter. So it kind of had some longer repeats. Again, out of 30, I guess out of 29, because we'll take the fast finish out of there, out of 29, I think three, maybe four, that would fall into that longer interval category. And then the rest, so whatever that is, 25, workouts have all pretty much been various degrees of intervals that topped out at a half a marathon, a half a mile, maybe three quarters of a mile, down to as short as like a minute, right? And so really it's like I either had short intervals, maybe you could say moderate, so maybe you could say four types, short, moderate, long, and then the one fast finish.

10:14Ultimately, for me, the reason there's such a high discrepancy of short and moderate type of intervals, and again, it doesn't really, like I have some that were half mile repeats, some that were three minute repeats, some that were four minute repeats, some were five minute repeats. Well, guess what, those are all about the same, right? I mean, maybe the three minutes doesn't quite get to a half mile, four minutes, probably a little bit longer than a half mile, five minutes certainly longer than a half mile, but not to a mile, but they're all kind of in that same ballpark. But the point is, for me, the reason I kind of emphasize the moderate and the shorter ones, are those are the repeats that those are the workouts that I feel like I'm best able to execute, that more often than not, I can drop the hammer pretty hard for whatever it is, a minute, two minutes, three minutes, five minutes, six minutes, you know, maybe even into like the mile repeat territory, which for me, my mile repeat pace ends up being somewhere around seven minute per mile, or six, 30 to seven minute mile, but certainly those five minutes and shorter, like I can hammer those pretty hard,

11:15execute pretty well. So those are the ones that I do, right? But I guess the point that I'm trying to make, when it comes to variety of workouts, you can be creative and come up with a bunch of different iterations of more or less the same thing, you can have different names, you know, you can do, you know, I have like an interval pyramid where I go from like one minute to two minutes to three minutes to four minutes, and then work my way back down, so it kind of looks like a pyramid, and then I have like a valley, where it goes the opposite direction, where I go like four minutes, three minutes, two minutes, one minute, and then work my way back up, one minute, two minutes, three minutes, four minutes. So like, you know, they're basically the same workout, it's just structured a little bit differently, right? It's a different paint job, it's a different icing job, but it's the same cake underneath, right? So you can get a little bit creative, or you could just go, I'm gonna do five reps of three minutes, right, and then I'm gonna do three reps of five minutes, and I'm gonna do five reps of four minutes, like you could just kind of keep it pretty similar, pretty vanilla, keep doing those same breakdown,

12:18maybe rotate through two or three, but basically do the same breakdown every week, you'll still get benefit from that too. So when it comes to variety of types of speed workouts that you do, or variety of the specifics of the workouts, there's no right answer between have a bunch of different options, or have two or three tried and true and stick to them, right, whatever works for you, so don't overthink it. If you've got a handful of workouts that you just find yourself keep going back to, just keep going back to them, they're working. If you like to have a little bit more variety in your life, give a little bit crazy, give a little bit crazy. Either way, variety, nothing wrong with it, but it's not necessary when it comes to your speed workouts. Next thing that I know that some people struggle with, not sure, I don't have access to a track so I can't do speed workouts, I've heard that before. If you've said that before, that's okay, right, but I'm here to tell you, you don't need to go to a track to do speed workouts, right? I haven't run on a track.

13:20I can't remember the last time I've proper run on a, actually, actually I can't remember. I did do a track workout when I was in Michigan this summer. It wasn't even my old high school, it's my old high school now, but is a high school that wasn't even built when I was in high school, but I ran on the track there for a workout this summer. But outside of that, it's been a minute since I've been on the track. Now, nothing wrong with the track. If you have access to a track, it's convenient to you to go to a proper running track. It's a great place to do speed workouts, right? Because you got the distances, each lap is probably a quarter of a mile. It's flat, you don't have to worry about traffic, now maybe you have to worry about other runners, but you don't have to worry about vehicular traffic, like running on the track, doing speed workout on the track, like I'm a fan, right? But I'm also lazy, I mean to a point. I think, I haven't confirmed this, but I've been thinking this since we moved to Georgia that the high school that Addison will eventually go to,

14:22that's only two and a half miles away from the house or three miles away from the house, I'm pretty sure I could get on the track and run on the track, you know, not when school's in session, of course, but like through the summer, I could probably go run on the track, right? If I wanted to go on the weekends, which I don't know why I'd want to go on the weekends, but if I wanted to go on the weekends, I bet I could go run on the track. But to me, I don't need to run on the track to do speed workouts, right? I can do it in my neighborhood, and that's ultimately the point. There is no location, there is no situation that you have to have to do speed workout. Now, probably running through, you know, through an area where you're crossing busy streets multiple times, probably not conducive to a good speed workout, right? Because if you got to stop for a treat, like you don't want to get hit by a car doing your speed repeats, right? That's not, that's not, no bueno. So in a proper urban setting, where there's lots of cars, lots of traffic, like that's probably not great. But can you find a quiet subdivision, right?

15:25Is there a major parking lot, you know, can you get to, like, and again, maybe you don't want to go to the target parking lot on like Black Friday, but like random Tuesday at six o'clock in the morning, like this, probably not a lot of things going on in the parking lot, right? So maybe you could do your speed workouts there. You said quiet neighborhood, quiet subdivision. Well, but my neighborhood's got hills in it. Yeah, okay. So does mine. And again, like it may not be quote unquote, ideal for your mind of like what you're thinking about doing speed workouts, but like, don't overthink it, right? If it's a place where you are comfortable running hard, so some places, you know, maybe got, if it's dark, it's well lit. It's got footing that you can trust, right? If you feel comfortable and safe to run there, then it's a place you can do speed workouts. Simple as hills. Oh, okay, you know, it's gonna impact your pace a little bit,

16:26but that's fine. You're still gonna put a good effort in, right? And that's the final thing on my list today when it comes to suggestions for speed work, things that I've been certainly like, again, common sense to me, but maybe there isn't always a straightforward as it is to everybody else. Yes, it's okay to try to set pace targets for your speed workout, but I'll die on the hill that the better option is effort, intensity, kind of how you feel like you're doing. So like if you do a speed workout and you finish it and you feel like, eh, that wasn't that hard, you probably didn't push hard enough. And I don't care if your training plan says that you need to do it between this time, this pace and this pace, and you execute, if you execute that great, but if you still finish the speed workout and you're like, that wasn't that hard, then you should have pushed harder, right? You didn't get, maybe not you should have, but you didn't get as much benefit from the speed workout as you could have had you pushed a little bit harder on, you know, a little bit faster pace, a little bit higher intensity. Likewise, maybe you have a day

17:28because we all have these days, at least I think we all do, Lord knows I do, where like the legs are heavy, the mind is weak, like you're trying, you're putting forth the effort, you're gas at the end of every interval, but never once did your pace hit, maybe what you thought the pace should have been, you finished the workout and you wrecked, you're just, you're a sweaty mess, your gas been for breath, like I hope that was as good for them as it was for me type of scenario, even though you didn't hit the targets for the paces, like, sounds like a successful workout to me, right? So judge your workouts based on effort. And especially if you're not at a place that's more controlled like a track, if you, you know, I do my speed workouts in my neighborhood, right? So I've got all kinds of hills that I have to work with. For the most part, the streets are pretty quiet, right? Like there's, there might be some traffic, but like it's quiet neighborhood, nobody's flying by, very few people are flying by speedwise. So like, I'm comfortable running,

18:29doing my speed workouts in the morning, but there are a couple of times when I've got across like the main street in our neighborhood. And like, I might have to hit the brakes because the car is coming in and even though they should stop for me because, you know, pedestrians, it's not a guarantee, right? And cars undefeated. So we try not to poke the bear on that one. So like, there are occasions where either the hills or traffic forces me to ease up back off whatever, but overall, I look at the speed workout, was the effort there? Yep. Mission accomplished, right? So speed workouts, the point that I'm trying to make today, and hopefully I've made it a couple of times, and hopefully I can make it one more time before we wrap up. They're good for you, right? They're good for you, especially if you've got a good solid base and a good solid foundation built on consistency of, especially of like easier runs, right? Really building that foundation that we talk about all the time.

19:30If you've got that in place, man, speed workouts can really boost you forward, both in terms of like race performance, but also just in terms of like health, fitness, strength, like just overall goodness for you, right? Just don't overthink them. Just don't overthink them. And I know Lord knows there's plenty of things that I overthink. Lord knows as humans, we're good at overthinking things, but speed workouts don't have to be one of those things you overthink. Make, keep it simple, find what works for you, and get it done, right? So whether that's a lot of variety or just having a couple of different workouts that you kind of go back and forth between, either way works, right? Location, sure, running on a track might be ideal, but if you don't have that option two year, it's not as convenient as something else, head out the door, head to a big parking lot, head to maybe a sports field complex that like on a Tuesday morning, like there's no youth sports going on. So it's quiet, you can run there, like find a good place, a safe place, and do your speed work out there. Doesn't have to be the track. And last but not least, I think judging by effort

20:31is better than judging by pace, because if you're feeling great, push harder than the pace recommendations, right? But your effort is gonna be there, like you're gonna be pushing it nine out of 10? Perfect. Some days nine out of 10 might be five minute pace, some days it might be six minute pace, some days it might be eight minute pace, but as long as it's nine out of 10, you're getting what we're trying to get. You're getting the benefit, right? Don't overthink it, do it. Just don't do it too much. Once a week, maybe once every two weeks, something like that, whatever works for you. I'll hit my 35, and I'll probably back off a little bit this year. I'm gonna keep doing them. I'm not gonna like just stop cold turkey, but maybe I'll go from, maybe I'll go down to closer to every other week. We'll see, we'll see. I don't know. I'm having fun with the speed workouts. My body's feeling good. So maybe I'll just keep on keeping on, and like I said, maybe I'll hit 45 this year instead of 35. But glad I put the speed workouts on the agenda, and if you've been struggling to do them, struggling to overthink them,

21:31hopefully this episode will be useful for you. Anyway, if you want some help on the coaching front, I know a guy because I am a guy. This runs.com.stash coaching openings are available. So yeah, if I can help you, I'm happy to do so. And if you know somebody who's struggling with the speed workouts, maybe overthinkin' things a little bit, hit that share button, spread the button, spread the word, appreciate it when you do that. And until next time, I'll be well, take care, talk soon. See you. Zhang Xiang In