{"id":134626,"date":"2025-11-14T11:59:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T11:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/134626\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T11:59:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T11:59:13","slug":"this-is-how-long-it-takes-to-run-faster-according-to-top-coaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/134626\/","title":{"rendered":"This is how long it takes to run faster, according to top coaches"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I started running<\/a> more consistently a little over a year ago, I had a lot of questions. Which trainers should I wear? How often should I run, and for how long, exactly? And of course, what the heck is a Gu? <\/p>\n

As I settled into a pace, I had another question in the back of my mind: how long does it take to get faster? While I\u2019m not trying to win a race any time in the near future, of course, I liked the idea of making it to the finish line in less time. Think about it: you get to celebrate sooner, you spend less time actually running, and you get a little more bragging rights (whether or not that\u2019s justified). <\/p>\n

So, if like me, you\u2019re up at night Googling ‘how long does it take to get faster’ as you do the mental math of just how many minutes to hours it\u2019s going to take you to run your first 5K<\/a>, half marathon, or marathon<\/a>, here it is \u2013 the answer I couldn\u2019t find \u2013 according to running coaches.<\/p>\n

What to Read Next<\/p>\n

Meet the experts: Jes Woods<\/a> is a RRCA-certified run coach, a Nike Running Coach, and founder of the Brooklyn Trail Club. Kelly Roberts<\/a> is a RRCA-certified run coach and founder of the Badass Lady Gang run community. <\/p>\n

This is what it takes to speed up<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get faster if you don\u2019t already have an aerobic<\/a> base, which means you already have a baseline fitness level that allows you to sustain a slower run for at least a few miles. To build up an aerobic base, you\u2019re going to want to run three to four times per week for about 40 minutes at a conversational pace<\/a>, says Kelly Roberts, an RRCA-certified run coach and founder of the Badass Lady Gang running community. <\/p>\n

Once you feel comfortable sustaining that, you\u2019re ready to start incorporating speed work<\/a> into your training. ‘Speed doesn\u2019t come from one magical workout, but it does come from consistent speed work,’ says Jes Woods, a RRCA-certified Nike Running coach. ‘Speed work is where you actually teach your body how to run fast.’<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about getting your body used to running faster and building up the right physical adaptations to do it again. ‘Physiologically, speed work pushes your body to become more efficient at using oxygen and clearing lactate,’ Woods says. ‘You\u2019re essentially teaching your muscles<\/a> and cardiovascular system to handle more stress and still recover stronger.’<\/p>\n

Speed workouts can look like a few different things: runs with faster intervals<\/a>, fartleks (another type of interval training but with far less structure), tempo runs (shorter runs done at a faster pace), or hill<\/a> sprints. They\u2019re all ways of giving yourself short, intentional bursts at faster paces that will ultimately translate into you being able to run more quickly for longer periods of time. <\/p>\n

A typical run programme aimed at increasing speed (but not necessarily building to a race) will include 1-2 speed workouts per week, 1-2 easy runs per week, at least one day of strength training, and a long run, Woods says. They all play a different role: speed workouts (as discussed) teach your body to run faster, easy runs support recovery and improve endurance, strength training builds power and stability and helps prevent injury<\/a>, and long runs also improve endurance. ‘That balance allows your body to stress, adapt, and recover in the right proportions,’ Woods says.<\/p>\n

Training to get faster is also mental, Roberts says. ‘When you run faster, everything gets louder,’ she says. ‘That tends to be the hardest part for most people \u2013 saying yes to the screaming in your legs<\/a>and saying yes to the little parrots on your shoulder that starts screaming, “Oh my God, death is imminent,” which is sometimes what it feels like when you’re racing a 5K or a 10K.’ Her best advice? Pay attention to self-talk before, during, and after your workouts. Try utilising mantras to get you through a tough workout or across a finish line in personal record time. (Roberts\u2019 favourite is: \u2018I don\u2019t know if I can do this. Let\u2019s see what happens when I give my best.\u2019)<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re training consistently, this is how long it should take before you see the seconds fly off<\/p>\n

Every runner is different, so there are a few factors that will speed up or slow down just how long it takes to get faster \u2013 but in six to eight weeks of consistent training, you should notice a shift on your Strava, the run coaches agree. One small study, which was done in men, in the Journal of Sport and Health Science<\/a> found that intermittent sprint training (a type of speed workout) reduced 10K time in six weeks. Plus, after eight weeks of *any* aerobic exercise, the VO2 max<\/a>, a measurement of how well your body uses oxygen (and one metric that\u2019ll help you speed up), of 39 sedentary adults significantly improved, according to a 2019 study in Sports Medicine International<\/a>. <\/p>\n

While it\u2019s hard to say exactly how many seconds faster you\u2019ll be, ‘you\u2019ll feel different,’ Roberts says. ‘You\u2019ll feel a level of ease because you\u2019re developing more aerobic strength and your VO2 max is starting to increase.’ <\/p>\n

How much you speed up really depends on how long you\u2019ve been running \u2013 and on things like genetics. ‘Some people are innately gifted runners,’ Roberts says. ‘Others have to work a lot harder for marginal time differences.’ Meanwhile, beginner runners tend to have an advantage when it comes to getting faster. That\u2019s because there\u2019s more room for improvement \u2013 just think about the sedentary adults used in the above study. <\/p>\n

‘The best part about being a newer runner is that your gains are huge,’ Roberts says. ‘If you’re looking to get faster, you’ll never see bigger [personal record] swings than you’ll see with a brand new runner.’ But, whether you\u2019re a new runner or old \u2013 speed gains are in your future. Just give yourself some time and focus on consistency.<\/p>\n

Related Stories\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Olivia Luppino is an editorial assistant at Women\u2019s Health. She spends most of her time interviewing expert sources about the latest fitness trends, nutrition tips, and practical advice for living a healthier life. Olivia previously wrote for New York Magazine\u2019s The Cut, PS (formerly POPSUGAR), and Salon, where she also did on-camera interviews with celebrity guests. She\u2019s currently training for the New York City marathon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When I started running more consistently a little over a year ago, I had a lot of questions.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[92150,5218,92151,2117,565,134,2116,111,139,69,92149],"class_list":["post-134626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-according-to-coaches","tag-content-type-default","tag-contentid-975b8354-0b8e-43a6-bf81-8d2292f40b8f","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-locale-gb","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-shorttitle-this-is-how-long-it-takes-to-run-faster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}