How to Get Faster at Running: What the Research Actually Says

This is Part 1 of our Getting Faster series. Part 1 covers what makes you faster. Parts 2 and 3 cover how long it takes, for new runners and for experienced runners chasing a PR.

In 2018, I ran the Des Moines Marathon in 3:52. Eight years later, at 44, I ran the same course in 3:33.

People sometimes ask what the secret was. There wasn't one. My Garmin VO2 max barely moved during my 19-week training block, hovering around 52 to 54 the whole time. Most days, I didn't even feel faster. I was tired, which is exactly how a good training block should feel.

What got me there was a handful of boring things done consistently: more miles, most of them easy, the right hard workouts, strength training, and taking recovery seriously. The research on getting faster points to the same things.

Here's what actually makes you faster, what the studies say, and what to do about it.

What "Getting Faster" Actually Means

Before getting into the how, it helps to know what's actually changing when you get faster. Exercise physiologists Michael Joyner and Edward Coyle described endurance performance as coming down to three things:

• VO2 max: how much oxygen your body can use at full effort. Think of it as the size of your engine.
• Threshold: how close to that max you can run before fatigue builds up fast. It's the hardest pace you can hold for a long time.
• Running economy: how much energy it takes to run at a given pace. Think of it as your fuel efficiency.

Newer runners can improve all three quickly. Experienced runners usually find VO2 max levels off, and most of their gains come from threshold and economy. That's exactly what happened to me. My VO2 max barely changed during my marathon block, but I still ran 19 minutes faster.

The six things below improve those three numbers in different ways. You need all of them.

1. Run More, Consistently

The single biggest driver of getting faster at longer distances is running more, and doing it week after week without big gaps.

Research on recreational marathoners backs this up. A 2011 study by Giovanni Tanda found that two training numbers predicted marathon time: average weekly distance and average training pace. Runners who ran more miles at a steady clip ran faster marathons. A follow-up study by Tanda and Beat Knechtle in 2013 found the same pattern in a different group of recreational runners.

The key word is consistently. A great week followed by two weeks off because you got hurt doesn't help much. Building up gradually, so you can stay healthy and keep running, matters more than any single big week.

A warning about doing too much too soon. More mileage is one of the most reliable ways to get faster, but ramping it up too quickly is also one of the most common ways runners get hurt. Overuse injuries like shin splints, tendinitis, and stress fractures often show up a few weeks after a big jump, not right away. If you're newer to running, be extra patient. Your heart and lungs adapt faster than your bones, tendons, and joints, so you'll feel ready for more before your body actually is. I broke down how fast to add miles, and what the research says about injury risk, in how fast you should really increase your mileage.

What it looked like for me: In early 2025, I quit CrossFit to focus on running. My Garmin VO2 max was around 49. Over the next year, I went from about 20 miles a week to around 30, and my VO2 max climbed to 52 to 54. I held 30 to 35 miles a week for about six months before starting my marathon plan, and averaged around 45 miles a week during the block. That base is what everything else was built on.

What to do: Run most days of the week, and add mileage slowly. Five days a week works well for me. If you're running three days a week now, adding a fourth easy day is probably the biggest upgrade you can make.

2. Keep Most of Your Runs Easy

This is the one most runners get wrong. It feels like running faster in training should make you faster in races. But the research says most of your running should be slow.

The 80/20 pattern. When researchers study what elite endurance athletes actually do, they consistently find that about 80% of their training is at low intensity, with only about 20% at moderate or high intensity.

It works for regular runners, too. In a 2007 study led by Jonathan Esteve-Lanao, 12 well-trained runners trained for about five months. One group did about 80% of their training at easy intensity. The other did about 67% easy, with more time at a moderate, "comfortably hard" pace. Both groups did the same amount of hard training. The mostly-easy group improved more on a 10.4 km race: about 157 seconds faster, compared with about 122 seconds for the moderate group.

Polarized training beat the alternatives. In a 2014 study by Thomas Stöggl and Billy Sperlich, 48 well-trained endurance athletes spent nine weeks following one of four approaches: mostly high volume, mostly threshold, mostly high-intensity intervals, or "polarized," which meant mostly easy training plus some hard intervals and very little in the middle. The polarized group had the biggest gains in VO2 max (about 12%) and in time to exhaustion. The high-volume and threshold groups didn't improve much in the key measures.

Why does this work? Easy running builds your aerobic engine with less fatigue, so you can run more miles and show up fresh for the hard days. When you run your easy days too hard, you end up too tired to run your hard days hard enough. Everything blurs into the same medium effort.

80/20 is a guideline, not a formula. A strict 80/20 split is easier to hit at higher mileage, around 40 or more miles a week, where there's plenty of easy running to balance a couple of hard sessions. If you're running 15 miles a week across three days, one hard workout already makes up a big share of your running, and trying to split everything into exact percentages gets awkward. At lower mileage, don't worry about the math. Just keep your easy runs truly easy and limit yourself to one hard session a week. As your mileage grows, the balance will naturally shift toward 80/20.

What it looked like for me: My goal marathon pace was 8:35 per mile. I ran my long runs around 9:30. Some days that felt almost too slow, but it let me recover and nail my workouts. I wrote about this in the long run is not a race and why every run should not feel the same.

What to do: Run your easy days at a pace where you can talk in full sentences. If you use heart rate, our article on zone 2 running explains why your watch's zones may not be right for you. Not sure what your easy pace should be? Our pace calculator gives you a range based on a recent race.

3. Add the Right Hard Workouts

Easy miles build the base. Hard workouts sharpen it. Most runners only need one or two hard sessions a week.

There are two main types, and they do different jobs:

VO2 max intervals are short, hard repeats, usually 2 to 5 minutes each at around 5K pace, with recovery jogs in between. Think 6 x 800 meters or 5 x 3 minutes. They push your engine size. A 2015 meta-analysis by Zoran Milanović and colleagues, which combined 28 studies, found that both interval training and steady endurance training produced large improvements in VO2 max, with intervals giving a small extra boost.

Threshold or tempo runs are longer, steady efforts at a "comfortably hard" pace, roughly the pace you could hold for about an hour in a race. Think 20 to 30 minutes continuous, or broken into chunks like 3 x 10 minutes. These raise your threshold, so you can hold a faster pace longer before fatigue builds up. For longer races, this is often where the biggest gains come from. Our article on tempo runs vs. threshold runs breaks down the difference.

What it looked like for me: I did tempo runs and interval work like 400 and 800 repeats, usually once or twice a week. I no longer do all-out sprints. Those cause more problems than they solve for a runner my age. Halfway through my training block, I ran a 21:58 5K on a hot July day, while I was in the middle of heavy marathon training and not tapered at all.

What to do: Pick one or two hard sessions a week, and keep everything else easy. If you're newer to running, start with one. More hard workouts isn't better if they leave you too tired to run well the rest of the week.

4. Strength Train

A lot of runners skip strength training because it doesn't feel like it makes them faster. The research says it does.

A 2018 meta-analysis led by Nicolas Berryman, published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, combined 28 studies on strength training for distance athletes. Adding strength training to normal training led to moderate improvements in performance, mostly by improving running economy. In other words, stronger runners used less energy at the same pace. Heavier, maximal-strength training worked better than light, high-rep work, and the benefits showed up regardless of the athletes' level.

What it looked like for me: I strength train twice a week, including during marathon training. I focus on legs and hips now, and I've cut back most of my upper-body work. On days I don't run, I lift. I'm convinced it helped me stay healthy through the whole block.

What to do: Two sessions a week of real strength work, like squats, deadlifts, lunges, and calf raises, is plenty. Do them on easy days or rest days, not right before a key workout. Our guide to strength training for runners has a full routine.

5. Treat Recovery Like Training

Training doesn't make you faster. Recovering from training does. The workout is the stress, and your body gets stronger while it repairs.

Sleep is the big one. In a well-known Stanford study published in Sleep in 2011, 11 college basketball players spent five to seven weeks trying to get more sleep, aiming for 10 hours in bed each night. Their sprint times improved from 16.2 seconds to 15.5 seconds, and their shooting accuracy went up about 9%. It wasn't a running study, but the lesson carries over: more sleep, better performance.

Cutback weeks matter, too. Most good training plans cut mileage back every few weeks so your body can absorb the work. Don't skip them because you feel good. That's the point of them.

Fuel your training. Not eating enough can slow your recovery and leave you flat for workouts. That includes carbs during long runs. Our guide to how to fuel long runs and races covers how much you need.

What it looked like for me: For me, the biggest difference in this training block came down to trusting the plan, listening to my body, and taking recovery seriously. I do longer, dynamic warmups before runs, especially for my hips. I take electrolytes daily, even on days I don't run. I get protein and electrolytes in right after long runs, and sometimes I nap. That's my routine, not a rule for everyone, but taking recovery seriously is part of why I made it through 19 weeks healthy.

What to do: Protect your sleep, take your cutback weeks, and eat enough to support your training. If you're over 40, recovery matters even more. I wrote about that in masters running: how to get faster after 40.

6. Practice Racing

Fitness is only part of a fast race. You also have to know how to use it.

Pace yourself. Going out too fast is the most common way runners waste their fitness. Practice holding your goal pace in training so it feels familiar on race day.

Add race pace to some long runs. Some of my long runs finished with 3 to 4 miles at marathon pace. Most of the long run stayed easy, but those miles taught my body what race pace felt like on tired legs.

Race a little. Tune-up races are great practice for pacing, fueling, and race-morning routines, and they give you a real fitness check.

Taper properly. Cutting back before a race lets your fitness show up. Our article on the tapering trap explains why it feels so weird.

Why You Might Not Feel Faster (Even When You Are)

Here's something nobody told me: during a hard training block, you might not feel faster at all.

That's because fitness and fatigue build up at the same time. You're getting fitter every week, but you're also carrying a lot of fatigue from all that training, and the fatigue hides the fitness. Your runs feel hard. Your easy pace doesn't seem to change. It's easy to think it isn't working.

Then you taper, the fatigue clears, and the fitness shows up. That's exactly what happened to me. During my block, I was tired most of the time. Once I started tapering, my runs felt easy, the weather cooled off, and my heart rate was lower on every run. That's when I knew the training had worked.

So if you're in the middle of a training block and feel stuck, don't panic. Judge your progress by races and key workouts, not by how tired you feel on a Tuesday.

Putting It All Together

Here's what a week might look like for a runner training for a half marathon or marathon, running five days a week:

That's two hard days, three easy or long days, and two strength days. Newer runners can start with one hard day and build from there.

If you'd rather not build it yourself, our free training plan builder sets up your weeks and calculates your paces from your current fitness, not just your goal.

What's Next: How Long Does It Take?

Knowing what to do is half the battle. The other half is patience. In the next parts of this series, we'll cover how long it actually takes to get faster, with a timeline for new runners and a separate one for experienced runners trying to take time off their half marathon or marathon.

FAQ

What is the fastest way to get faster at running? For most runners, it's running more miles consistently, with most of them easy, plus one or two hard workouts a week. There isn't a shortcut, but those basics work for almost everyone.

Should I run faster on my easy days to get faster? No. Research on how elite and well-trained runners train shows most of their running, about 80%, is easy. Running easy days too hard leaves you too tired to get the most out of your hard workouts.

How many hard workouts should I do per week? Most runners do best with one or two. Newer runners can start with one.

Does strength training make you a faster runner? Yes. A 2018 meta-analysis of 28 studies found strength training led to moderate improvements in distance performance, mostly by improving running economy. Heavier strength work was more effective than light, high-rep work.

Can you get faster without increasing mileage? Yes, especially by making your easy runs easier, adding a hard workout, and strength training. But for longer races, gradually building mileage is one of the most reliable ways to improve.

Why don't I feel faster even though I'm training hard? Fatigue from training can hide your fitness. Many runners feel tired during a training block and only feel the improvement once they taper before a race.

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This article is for general information and isn't medical advice. If you have an injury or a medical condition, talk to your doctor or a physical therapist before changing your training.

Sources

• Joyner, M. J., & Coyle, E. F. (2008). Endurance exercise performance: the physiology of champions. The Journal of Physiology, 586(1), 35–44.
• Tanda, G. (2011). Prediction of marathon performance time on the basis of training indices. Journal of Human Sport and Exercise, 6(3), 511–520.
• Tanda, G., & Knechtle, B. (2013). Marathon performance in relation to body fat percentage and training indices in recreational male runners. Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine, 4, 141–149.
• Esteve-Lanao, J., Foster, C., Seiler, S., & Lucía, A. (2007). Impact of training intensity distribution on performance in endurance athletes. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 21(3), 943–949.
• Stöggl, T., & Sperlich, B. (2014). Polarized training has greater impact on key endurance variables than threshold, high intensity, or high volume training. Frontiers in Physiology, 5, 33.
• Milanović, Z., Sporiš, G., & Weston, M. (2015). Effectiveness of high-intensity interval training (HIT) and continuous endurance training for VO2max improvements: a systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled trials. Sports Medicine, 45(10), 1469–1481.
• Berryman, N., Mujika, I., Arvisais, D., Roubeix, M., Binet, C., & Bosquet, L. (2018). Strength training for middle- and long-distance performance: a meta-analysis. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 13(1), 57–63.
• Mah, C. D., Mah, K. E., Kezirian, E. J., & Dement, W. C. (2011). The effects of sleep extension on the athletic performance of collegiate basketball players. Sleep, 34(7), 943–950.