I was recently asked how to increase your running pace, so thought I would share my answer with you here:

The secret is interval/tempo training. The basic idea is that you go beyond your aerobic threshold into your anaerobic training zone for short bursts so that in time your aerobic speed increases. In essence this means that over time the speed you could only maintain in short bursts previously, will become the pace you can keep at throughout a long run.

You can either do this as speed or hill work. With speed you would run at a steady pace for say two mins, then fast for a min, steady for two etc. You can also do what’s called as fartlek which is more random but normally someone yells at you to get you to change pace so is hard to do alone. Another good method is to use lamp posts and count a certain number for the steady pace and fast pace.

A good way to do hill work is to run up a hill as fast as poss then jog slowly back down and repeat.

If you have any training questions please feel free to email me on laura.f.hilton@gmail.com. Also get in touch if you are interested in personal training or small group training.