Running speed help

How many miles per week are you running? Depending on your answer, I would almost always recommend increasing miles first and working on speed later. 

I disagree. 

One can make big gains in running by running often and building a base of steady miles. It's counterintuitive, but surprisingly effective. Speed workouts can be effective, but for many people they greatly increase the risk of injury. Especially for those without a strong base of steady mileage. If the OP is younger or unusually injury-immune, then this advice is less relevant. Run 5-7 times per week, stay consistent, and be(come) light, and you can get fast. The change doesn't come overnight, but it's lasting change. Many people here have reported strong running performances with zero speedwork. As a triathlete, one benefit is that you can do high intensity training on the bike to provide at least some of the benefits of intense aerobic training, with fewer risks.

Run more and then add some speed intervals.

Listen to the people that tell you to make appropriate increases to your frequency and volume.  It works.

First, welcome to BT!

Second ... I second what Asalzwed and colinphilips said. Slowly build up to (quite a few) more miles per week, lots of frequency (like more shorter runs over the week than 3-4 longer ones), and that alone will get you faster at the short distance. It will also provide you the necessary fitness, base, and structural adaptations that mean you can add speedwork (whatever form that takes, there are many kinds) toward the kind of benefit you want from it with a far lower risk of injury.

ETA: And Goosedog and Hook 'em.

... and this is one of the people I had in mind when writing my post. Check out her race reports for some very nice examples of how one can do quite well off a diet of steady running and no speedwork. 

I may get shouted at for this but a good place to look could be your weight.

Now, you may be 6'2" and 135 pounds, about the size of my neighbor who holds a world Indoor 10,000 meter record and can cruise at sub 5:00 miles all day. He's from Somalia and he's in London now.

If you are that size, you're not overweight for a runner. Me? I'm 5'9" and 165, obese for a runner.

So, getting weight off will help if you are about my height to weight ratio.

Secondly, base. Base in running can take years to truly develop, often times 2 years for a dedicated recreational runner. Building an aerobic base will make your cardiovascular system more efficient, strengthen your musculo-skeletal system and acclimate your connective tissues to "injury-proof" you and help you maintain or get to race weight.

Once you have an adequate base you can investigate doing speed-oriented workouts. Until then, intervals are an invitation for problems; you're not ready.

As a poster on the Slowtwtich.com forum once wisely said, "Intervals are the icing on the cake, and you [may not] have a cake yet."

Also, FYI: A good way to tell if a "coach" or training advice is credible is whether or not they recommend for a slower pace runner (7:30 pace +) to do intervals before l;osing weight and building extensive base. If they do recommend intervals, then do your first interval running away from their advice.

and beer and pizza....

Just to clarify, no you don't.

You won't get yelled at. Yours is a good collation of the advice offered in this thread, albeit perhaps a bit more directly, and with a sage quote and capping advice at the end.

Say what you want about running more vs running faster. Yes only 10-15miles per week is not very much by endurance standards for a lot of people and volume should be attained first. But if you go out and run 10 miles a day, at the same pace, you're going to plateau. You will get really efficient at running 10 miles though. You need lots and lots and yes, even more volume training. But I'll stand my ground on putting in intervals into your runs or doing some track work or some tempo runs. This isn't sprint speed by any means. So you're doing a 90min run, push the tempo for 4,5,6 minutes at a time a few times throughout the run, then drop way down into a recovery phase between those sets. I come from a track background based around the planning of mostly volume, then speed specific race training on top of that. Get your mileage up first, then work on some speed. If you're a new runner, you will naturally get faster as you get more volume. But if you're more seasoned athletically, there's got to be some speed work.

And yes, the people here saying you need that base are 100% correct. I should have looked at your post a little deeper. I was going off the assumption that I made that you were seasoned and putting in more miles.

No.  And Tom's comment went too far in his description of 'obese'.  His point (I hope) is that to be a REALLY good runner, you have to be pretty lean.  Any excess weight (fat, or even muscle not needed for running) is going to slow you down.  That said, you can get faster at your current weight simply by running more.

I will second, third and fourth the consensus here that you need to run more miles first before adding speedwork.

I know, I know -- I argued this point quite a bit when I first came on the site.  I'm an old school (ok that's weird to see me say) track and x-country runner, and everything I thought I knew about running came from the 80s.  Intervals, speed workouts... go hard or go home, right?

Let's just say I've come around quite a bit this past year, and have seen that by simply increasing your base you can also increase your speed quite a bit.  Its a weird concept, to go slower to go faster, but it works.  Once you have a good base, then you can add the speedwork and you'll be golden.

Thank you BT -- you were (are) right.

Agree - this is a good quote from ST that's stuck with me for a while (not sure who should get credit for it):

"Speedwork is icing on the cake.  You don't have a cake yet."

Hang in there, and focus on steadily increasing your MPW - the speed will come, I promise.

Cheers, Chris

Well that settles it.

The OP mentioned 10-15 MPW currently - that is not yet enough of a reasonable base for meaningful improvement.  Mileage needs to come up before incorporating speedwork, or it'll just be a waste of time.

Apples and oranges to this discussion - none of us are olympic runners.

Well, running easier doesn't necessarily mean super easy all the time. You can get pretty fast just by adding in some strides a few times a week. And then putting in a moderately paced tempo every now and then. Run hills as well. And this is not to be confused with hill repeats in this context. OP could make some very noticeable gains with more volume and then adding in these easier than track work bits.

I agree. Why do I always forget about strides! I'm generally one to do more hill training since I'm coming back from knee surgery. That doesn't mean repeats either. I just try to find hillier courses to run and train on. And when I say track workouts, I'm not saying the max effort 600-1200m repeats. More so maybe some 400-1600m repeats, but at a pace that's slightly above your race effort. What has worked for me is 400s at faster than current pace at said distance and resting 60 sec between. It's not an all out sprint effort. You've got to get muscles firing faster from time to time to get more speed for a greater distance. But again, base training is key. OP needs more miles on the legs and feet. Not even mileage, but just time on feet. But your legs have to know how to run at those faster speeds as well.