How to get faster?

[Jonathan Loschi]

I vary my runs during training.  I run a good bit of hills, long runs, tempo runs, speed work.

I had never done speedwork and added trackwork to my workout a couple of years ago and my PR improved in the next race by about 6 minutes.  Since then I think I've kind of plateau-ed.

I just ran a half marathon.  (I dont run marathons)  Every week I ran a tempo run where I sought to maintain a 7:45 pace roughly.  I also run long runs, and hill runs where I didn't worry about pace.  I then would do one track workout.  Typically, I ran about 2 miles warmup...then 3-5 mile intervals...by intervals I mean I ran one mile at 6:20 something..then walked, very slow jogged...did it again...then a 2 mile or so cooldown slow run.  Occasionally I would run 1 or 2 1/2 milers in there as well.  I also occasionally did some hill bursts...20 seconds hard up a steep hill at the end of a run...4-5x...

But I just don't feel like I got anywhere and actually ran my half slower than I have in the last couple.  I want to get faster.  Any advice?

[Sasha Pachev]

You are running only about 120 miles a month and training only 4 days a week. This is not enough for a solid aerobic base. At this point speed work will give only marginal benefits since it would be impossible to do it in the volume and at the intensity that is high enough to be effective. You run out of air before you run out of neural drive and muscular strength, which is what speed work helps develop. And if that happens, muscular strength and neural drive never get pushed to the limit, and thus never improve.

I would normally recommend running 6 days a week for as far as you can handle without injury. However, in your case, you weigh 220 lb. If you still do, I would run as much as you think you can handle and throw in extra aerobic cross-training such as biking or elliptical. If your weight has gone down, or if you feel you can run 6 days a week at your current mileage daily with your current weight, that is where I would start. Then work on increasing it.