run faster!

This year it seems I'm running slower than ever.  Even when it feels like I'm just blazing on a downhill, I'll check the pace my watch is showing and see that I'm barely running a pace I ran for 5K last year.  I believe that a long stretch of easy long runs this year is the reason.  While the good news is that my endurance base is not too bad, it seems I'm going to have to actually do some hard work to get some leg speed back.

One short extract from a Bruce Fordyce interview in Ultra Running magazine back in 2005 ...

Mark: What are the most important things an “average “ultra runner can do to improve performance?

Bruce: Run faster not longer! When I went to Chicago for the U.S. 50-mile championship, I thought I was better prepared than my American competitors because I had focused more on running fast than longer, which of course is not to say that long runs should be ignored.

Bruce ran a 4:50:51 at that 1984 AMJA U.S. 50-mile championships in Chicago.

What an endurance runner is really looking for is running efficiency.  An efficient runner is going to cover distance with less effort, and probably faster.  I'm adding some faster training runs (interval workouts) to try to improve my speed and efficiency.