I do one day a week of speed training. The benefits of speed training for ultrarunning are the following:

1) Helps increase lung capacity
2) Helps to improve muscular leg strength
3) Gets me used to running my normal pace faster

If you review my training program linked above, to the right of the page, you’ll see my Wednesdays are 4X which means 4, one-mile repeats; however, instead, I run four miles as fast as I can and try to get that four miles faster each time.

Tuesdays and Thursday consist of moderate pace runs at longer distances, 6-8 miles, while weekend long runs are very long consisting of anywhere from 2-5 hour runs.

These back-to-back Saturday and Sunday long runs are the bread and butter of my training and 75% of my focus is on these runs. These runs teach me to stay on my feet for hours, and running during periods of heavy fatigue, pain and a lot of the time, intense hunger.

I might also add that it’s these long runs where I practice race management and experiment with nutrition, electrolyte control and race equipment.

Thanks for asking and good luck with your training…

{thanks for the donation too – just saw the email}