Among the stories, gear guides, and longer tip posts that we do I think sometimes it is nice to grab a really useful quick tip from one of the sports best, Karl Meltzer. Today the quick tip is talking speed work and the importance of having some time dedicated to it, regardless of your preferred distance. Every so often we will throw in some quick tips that you can hopefully take out onto the road or trail during your next race or training run.

 

Speed Work: 

Karl: Me being a hundred mile specialist I don’t focus on speed work too often. However what I find is that on my training runs when I am feeling good using the perceived effort, I will run harder up the hills and I keep a good fast pace. That helps me with speed work, when you run 100 miles you don’t really have to run that fast you just have to be steady. If you can throw some speed work in there once a week during training I think you’ll find your steady pace begins to get faster. Perceived effort and my bodies reaction is important to knowing which days I train speed work and will also help me with recovery and making good decisions come race time. Often times the plan on paper might be a little off in certain situations and you have to trust your gut.