Fortunately, there is a lot of research in order to guide you in case you want to run longer and faster in your own training. By means of applying, some of those exercise sessions into your own training schedule on a general basis, you will probably experience a boost in your performances through a cycle of training. In order to enhance your speed and improve your endurance, you must study about taking care of your own body.
However, it does not stop at only stretching but it also consists of choosing the appropriate kind of running shoes and a proper, healthy diet as well. Now, just follow those steps below in order to upgrade your workouts and begin to clock these miles at a faster speed than before!
Ways to Run Longer and Faster
1. creating an appropriate environment
Choose a suitable time
Many people have some difficulties running in the early morning with an empty stomach, while others usually thrive on the 5:00 AM runs. Therefore, it is essential that you look for the most appropriate time when your body at its best state so that you can boost your speed and distance.
Create a playlist of favorite songs
You should make your music playlist various, which help you realize when to jog and when to speed yourself up. Interval training, which transitions between recovery jogs and fast sprints, helps build speed through time. You should mix some of your preferred hard rock or techno songs with some country or hip-hop and make a pump-up mix, which keeps your leg moving during your workout.
Alternately, attempt to run without any music
In case, you always listen to the music whenever running, you can try pausing your playlist for a while to understand how music makes your own body feel. Because:
- Some people may run a longer distance without being restricted by the tempo or length of the music playlists.
- You can listen to your body’s sound as well as concentrate on your own breath when running without any music.
Put on comfortable clothes in layers
Wear a comfortable running outfit, which helps you feel swift and energized. Whilst somebody enjoys the sweatshirts’ heavy feeling, which makes them sweat them out, others enjoy the sweat-reducing material and lightweight shorts. Thus, put on the clothes, which help you feel comfortable most.
Select suitable running shoes
The running shoes are usually available in specific fits, which are carefully tailored to the width and length of your feet and they are specifically made for unique kinds of running, your feet can be injured if you wear improper shoes, therefore, ensure to let your feet well-fitted by a special footwear.
- The road running shoes should be clothed on concrete or hard material, with manmade surfaces.
- The trail running shoes should be clothed for running off the road on muddy or rocky paths, sandy beaches, and dirty trails.
- Learn if you have a flat foot, normal arch or a high arch. Your foot’s arch will determine the way your feet moves when your run.
- Choose a pair of neutral shoes if your feet hit the ground equally. Choose a pair of shoes for motion control or stability if you usually over-pronate your feet by too much inward rolling. Choose a pair of shoes with flexibility and cushioning if you usually supinate your feet by too much outward rolling.
2. Running Routine
Stretch and warm-up
Jog slowly about 0.5 miles before stretching. When doing so, you allow your muscles and joints to warm-up before stretching, therefore, preventing them from getting injuries. Make sure to perform such dynamic stretch, which consists of motions like:
- Leg lifts: Swinging one of your legs out to a certain side as far as possible, then swing your leg back across the body facing the standing leg for as great a distance as possible. Repeat the leg lifts 10 times for every leg.
- Cheerleader kicks. Keep your knees and your back straight, then walk forward and lift both of your legs stretch out in such an exaggerated march, then, flex the toes toward yourself.
- Butt kicks: Doing an exaggerated motion of running in place when standing in order to loosen up the quad, hamstrings, and knees.
- Walking lunges: Performing squat into an exaggerated lunge with a foot out facing the other then continues to change your legs.
- Shoulder stretches: Do not forget to stretch the torso and shoulders in order to prevent the cramping in your run. Use your arms to move forward whenever you sprint, thus, you need to be limber and loose. Then, pull an arm straight across the chest and try to hug it with the other arm’s forearm. Change your sides and do the same with the other arm.
Try to time yourself when setting the baseline
You can use the stopwatch in order to log for numerous mileages to check the progress.
Put on a suitable regiment, which builds speed and endurance
Combine hills into your workouts about 2 or 3 times each week in order to boost the condition and boundaries of your body. Here is an example:
- Day 1: 10-20-10. Firstly, you will jog in ten minutes, and then run quickly in twenty minutes (about 80 percentages of effort), finally jog in the next ten minutes.
- Day 2: A sprint training. Firstly, you head to the track and start to practice your sprints. You should jog 0.5 miles (or 0.8 kilometers) and run for another mile, then sprint the straightaways and complete the turn by jogging. You can start with 1.5 miles and gradually enhance the distance.
- Day 3: Take a rest.
- Day 4: A long 60 to 90-minute-run. You should run at a certain pace, which is comfortable enough for you to keep on.
- Day 5: Another 10-20-10. Firstly, you will jog in ten minutes, and then run quickly in twenty minutes (about 80 percentages of effort), finally jog in the next ten minutes.
- Day 6: Take a rest.
- Day 7: Sprint training. Firstly, you head to the track and start to practice your sprints. You should jog 0.5 miles (or 0.8 kilometers) and run for another mile, then sprint the straightaways and complete the turn by jogging. You can start with 1.5 miles and gradually enhance the distance.
Improve the distance gradually
Patience is the most necessary aspects of enhancing your endurance. You should avoid forcing yourself to run in an exaggerate distance until you are accustomed to the gradual increasing of the distance. Generally, do not try to run 6 miles at the first time. Begin with 1 mile first then increase to 1.5 miles, then 2 miles…
Pace yourself
Do not try to sprint for 5 miles at the first time because you will exhaust and cause injuries for yourself. Begin with a jog and gradually improve the speed when you run.
Take notice of the breathing pattern
Your own breath is an important factor of your capacity to run a longer distance. You may think that it is easy, as you have practiced it for a long time; however, it is not as simple as what you think. You certainly knew how to breathe by the time you were born but you may lose some important skills at that time.
- A healthy respiratory system will have an essential effect on your workouts. If you breathe better, you support more oxygen for your legs, thus, your speed and endurance will be better. A research from the Brunel University of England approved of this, which proved that the breathing of a runner is the most strained, especially, for those who have the least powerful leg muscles.
- So, how to breath better? Breath fully is the simple answer to this question. Almost of us are the chest breathers, which mean we always breathe in small, and shallow some sips of air that do not fully utilize our lungs. We have spent most of our life breathing in this way, which is a difficult habit to break. Nevertheless, the belly breathing is much better, which is what we are designed to breathe.
- Take the breathing of a baby as an example, you can easily see his/her tummy contract and expand as the air leaves and enters his/her body. When you are belly breathers, your belly will blow up as a balloon, unlike chest breathers, whose shoulders fall or rise. In order to practice this, you can place a hand on your belly and the other on your chest.
- Try to take deep and slow breaths from the belly. The belly breathing means that you will use more sacs of air in your own lungs, thus, you will take more oxygen to support the muscles with more oxygen and prevent the fatigue as well. If you need more help, try a Pilate class, which help you improve your breathing, boost flexibility and strengthen your core – wonderful things for runners.
Plyometric Drills
you should depend on the plyometric routine, which employs to form drills in order to boost both your efficiency and your speed.
There is numerous research approved of this. Some experts even suggest that this is a result of enhancing the time contacting with the ground. By means of increasing your power and agility when pushing off the ground with every foot strikes, the less time you let your feet on the ground, the faster you will be.
3. Studing useful technique for speed
Take notice of your posture
You love running with the similar poise when you walk. Do not bend or hunch your back when you run, and try to keep your spine straight.
Practice your dorsiflexion and plantar flexion
The plantar flexion happens when you leave the ground by the flexing of ankle joint. The dorsiflexion is a process when you pull the knee up and let it leave the ground at an angle of 90 degrees. This will reload the ankle for the forward pushing-off.
Improve the hip joint in order to support the forward motion
Your lower back and hip flexor must flex when you run to keep your back straight as well as help the forward motion. Ensure you cycle your legs forward, not recover your legs behind the body.
Use the arms to push yourself forward
When you run, take turns to drive the elbows forward and back as exaggerated as possible. Whenever the elbow drives back, the opposite knee must lift up. Moreover, the elbows need to be bent at an angle of 90 degrees.
Lengthen the stride
When your stride is longer, your forward motion will be more effective. In order to make your stride longer, you can use your own legs to push instead of pulling yourself forward. On running, the power should originate from the leg, which is behind throughout the pushing-off.
Increase the frequency of your stride
Once you have a strong basic technique, you can start to lower the interval in every stride, thus, you will run faster and pick up your pace as well. Do not try to balance the length of your stride when increasing your speed.
A training of sprint interval
Whilst the distance runners can chafe at doing speed work, then add a fast interval workout every week may elicit the results for a long time. Many types of research have proved that the training of sprint interval help enhances thereby speed and muscle function.
Start incorporating some short bursts of the speed training in the longer runs
In order to increase speed for long distances, you should incorporate the intervals of 30 secs or 1 min sprints in your runs.
4. Selecting a suitable diet
Hydrate with a lot of water
Ensure to drink 3 liters of water for men and 2.2 liters of water for women every day. You also need to provide enough water for your long run.
- Two hours before your long run, you must drink enough water. While running, take little sips of water frequently to prevent cramping or bloating.
- Drink 0.5 liters of water immediately after your long run, and continue to provide water all over the day to as a replenishment of water supply.
Include lean proteins in your daily diet
Beans, eggs, tofu, turkey, chicken or fish are a good source of lean protein.
- The salmon is the best source of beneficial fats Omega-3, which offer a healthy inflammation system as well as help to reduce asthma’s symptoms.
- An egg for each day will offer 30% of vitamin K, which improves health bones. Besides, amino acids, which aid the muscle recovery, can be found in eggs.
- You should avoid a diet with a high level of processed meat or red meat. Both of them are believed to heighten the level of bad cholesterol, increase the potential of colorectal cancer and is a factor of clogged arteries and heart attack as well.
Eat nuts
Those nuts such as the almond are a good source of Omega-3 fatty acids and Vitamin E antioxidants, which help reduce the level of bad cholesterol and protect the tissue from damage coming from the free radicals. You also need to aware of high-fat nuts, thus, consider consuming a suitable size of them in your daily diet.
Eat rich beta-carotene food
Eat dark berries, leafy and dark greens and rich beta-carotene food. Berries and dark greens are a great source of healthy antioxidants as well as fiber, which improves digestive regularity. Carrots and sweet potatoes, on the other hand, contain a high level of beta-carotene, which helps promote muscle recovery.
Select whole grains
Whenever purchasing crackers, bread, cereal or other carbohydrate-based foods, consider choosing whole wheat or whole grain option. The whole grains include phytonutrients and fiber, which offer a healthy digestion.
Choose high-potassium food
The potassium helps decrease the risk of cramping and keep yourself hydrated as well as speed up the muscle recovery. Potatoes, yogurt, milk, and bananas are a good source of potassium.
Get enough vitamin C
The orange juices or oranges contain a high level of vitamin C, which help aid the muscle soreness as well as improve the immune system. You can take a supplement of vitamin C or the multivitamin daily in case you cannot get enough amount of vitamin C in your daily diet.
5. Advances techniques for running faster
In case you can run about 5-6 miles, which is about 20-25 miles each week, then you will need to enhance your speed. It is suggested that you spend a year running under the belt before beginning to incorporate the speed workouts.
Running farther will increase endurance; however, it is not enough. Using a wide range of running techniques will improve the running pace and your endurance as well:
Hill Training
Jogging with the gradually increasing height can totally support the growth of your physical condition much more effectively in comparision to jogging on the plain surface. In addition to, it aims at keeping fit, together with facilitating the process of blood and respiratory flow. As a result, it assists you to become healthier more easily. Actually, you can totally reach your final target, keeping fit or strengthening muscles only after 42 days. Although practicing by taking the advatage of the plain terrain is much more simple, will feel a lot easier.
Tempo Workout
Tempo jogging may be likely the greatest way for increasing the total pace you can run within a certain amount of time. It supports you to reach LIP, lactate inflection point and improve your speed quicker. Moreover, this can last the total amount of time to increase the level of lactic acid inside your body, which is the main reason causing serious pain.
Interval Training
This is one of the most effective practices aiming at supporting the growth of blood flow and respiratory system and strengthens the level of endurance.
Fartlek
This training can assist you to jog within a longer distance in the fixed period and prevent you from some serious hurts. Actually, the training for improving pace can take much effort and you had better implement with the simple workouts first. This act aims at supporting you for increasing your total speed much more effectively and obstructing your body from some serious pains. Also, it is better for you to start practicing at least one time a week. When you successfully strengthen your physical condition, increasing the quantity of exercises is necessary. However, keep in mind that you should not apply more than dual exercises for improving your pace per 7 days.
In conclusion
There are many factors contributing to the results of your workouts. If you want to run at a faster speed and a longer distance, you can make a reference of these useful tips. Now, you should start with an appropriate pair of running shoes, make a healthy diet, build a clever routine and especially, keep on practicing day by day. If you find these tips are useful, please comment and share with your friends! Never give up and you will be successful!
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