How to Run a Faster Mile!

1. Warm up.

   Warming up is important with any exercise, but it’s especially important when you’re doing high-intensity and speed training. Make sure you spend 5 – 15 minutes warming up: you can even do a 1 mile warm-up at a relaxed pace.

2. Go for endurance.

   To increase the speed you run 1 mile, aim to do 2 – 3 mile runs at a straight pace. E.g. if you currently do 1 mile at 10 minutes, aim to do 2 miles at 10 minutes a mile – so the total would be 20 minutes. This will build up your endurance, so you can focus on adding speed to your 1 mile.

3. Hill runs.

   Hill, stair (run up, walk down) and sand runs are a fantastic way to develop strength and endurance. You can start with sprints lasting 20 seconds, walk down as your rest, then build up to 40 second sprints. Work up to 10 of those, two times a week and you will see a huge improvement in your strength and endurance.

4. Hit the treadmill.

   The treadmill, love it or hate it, has a few benefits: weather-proof, accuracy for pace training, keeps you at a steady pace, can do inclines and offers a lot of training variety. So don’t worry if you can’t hit the Great Outdoors, the treadmill is fine.

5. Just HIIT it.

   HIGH-INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING is a great way to improve your speed as well as maximize fat loss. You can do 200m – 400m intervals: e.g running 200m at a sprint and then jogging 200m to recover – rinse and repeat 8 times. Or you can try out FARTLEKS (I know. It’s Swedish.) orLADDERS – both are forms of of HIIT.