Like the other types of workouts, speed training is an important part of constantly keeping your system on its toes, requiring it to adapt to workouts that vary in intensity and distance. That’s where we set them straight by guiding them through the Hansons Half-Marathon Method. Along with flat workouts tend to come stagnated finishing times.

Digging into these runners’ histories, we often find that they are running so many races that they have completely forgone speed training, spending all their time on long runs, tempo runs, and recovery. For instance, we have had runners come to us feeling stale after running several races in a year. Surprisingly, advanced runners often make the same mistakes that novices do in terms of speed training, namely, they neglect it.

Every speed workout you complete is like money in the bank when it comes to resources on which you can draw during the most difficult moments of the race. For whatever you give up to optimally execute these workouts, the training will give back to you tenfold. While you may be able to complete an easy run the morning after a late night out on the town, if you want to get the most out of your speed work, you will need to eat a hearty dinner and hit the hay at a decent hour. While easy days are typically low-pressure, speed workouts require you to put your game face on, and discipline is one of many benefits garnered. This type of training not only plays a role in prompting some of the important physiological changes we already discussed but also teaches your mind to handle harder work. Speed workouts require you to run multiple bouts of certain distances at high intensities with recovery between the fast segments.

When we refer to speed training, we are talking about interval sessions, also called repeat workouts. With speed workouts, half-marathon training begins to get more interesting.

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