You don’t need a burning desire to run faster to call yourself a runner, but many of us do aim to improve our speed—and the secret, surprisingly, is to actually run faster.
Running longer, slower miles is incredibly valuable for building stamina and endurance. These easy runs increase the number, size, and density of mitochondria—the powerhouses—within your cells, making you more energy efficient.
However, to become a more fleet-footed runner, workouts must include quicker paces. Often, this means stepping outside your comfort zone—a cliché, perhaps, but a necessary one.
Having run for more than half my life, I’ve found that I’ve gotten faster with age. I work with a coach for key races and became an RRCA-certified run coach in 2024, and through that experience, I’ve learned that workouts need to be extremely focused on the goal. This “specificity of training” inherently requires faster paces. How can your body learn to maintain a 6:15 pace for a 5K if it’s never practiced that pace before?
That doesn’t mean attempting to run goal pace for an entire workout. (I once heard a novice runner tell a colleague she planned to run a 5K every weekend, progressively faster, to improve her 5K time.)
Ignoring your current fitness level can lead to injury and burnout—and disappointment on race day. However, during interval workouts, I always push for a slightly higher pace. The confidence gained from successfully completing challenging paces boosts my mental game; before a goal race, I remind myself of those successful workouts.
Over the past few months, I’ve been gradually increasing the pace of my long runs, from roughly 8:30 down to around 8:10. (I likely ran them too fast for years, to be honest.)
It’s a little unnerving to regularly head out for 10, 12, or 15 miles aiming for a sub-8-minute pace and feeling comfortable maintaining it outside of half or marathon training. But I knew the work I’d been doing would support this new level. (A training partner recently declared we’d reached a new long-run pace threshold—the validation I needed to know my training was shifting.)
Running faster is scary. It hurts, yes, but more importantly, it means setting goals that feel risky. And while failure is possible, at least I’ll be failing faster.
Heather is the former food and nutrition editor for Runner’s World, the author of The Runner’s World Vegetarian Cookbook, and a nine-time marathoner with a best of 3:23. She’s also proud of her 19:40 5K and 5:33 mile. Heather is an RRCA certified run coach.
