Running fast: Steve Cram's tips for a mile and beyond

“What people don’t always understand,” explains Steve Cram, after watching me sprint as though my life depended upon it, “is that speed filters up as well as down.”

I am not a sprinter. In fact, I regard 5km races as a little on the short side. Yet Cram stresses that short and flat-out efforts can benefit even longer distance runners like me. Of course most of us know that interval training (sessions with reps at faster paces interspersed with easy efforts) are a vital part of getting faster when you run. But as Cram points out, many endurance athletes often neglect really hard efforts of 100m and 200m as they tend to focus on volume over pace – and that can be a mistake.

He certainly knows what he is talking about. After all, he set three world records in the 1500m, mile and 2000m over 19 days in 1985, and is the highly respected coach of double Olympian Laura Weightman. He also ran a 2hr 35m marathon in his late 30s, which is not too shabby either.

For this short session at the Parliament Hill track in London, Cram starts by setting me a few drills – shorter reps to get the legs turning over. He analyses my form using the slo-mo app on his phone, and gives me some pointers where I could improve. While a sudden and drastic change in form is likely to end badly, there are simple drills and exercises we can all do to improve, in just a few minutes. For example, hurdle drills (not as scary as they sound) to improve flexibility and hip mobility. After all this, I then do just two 100m reps followed by two 200m reps.

It doesn’t sound like a lot. Yet it does the trick. The 100m efforts are as close as I come to flat out. And while the 200m are supposed to be run at my notional mile pace, I actually run both of them a good few seconds faster than I had expected – because, having really gone for it on the 100ms, they do feel strangely easy. So how might you incorporate such a workout into your programme?

Well, in the winter, the aim is to build base endurance. Cram, who is working with sports retailer Wiggle and sports social network Strava to promote their #mymile campaign to get people to run a fast (for them) mile this summer, divides the type of runs you might do into “speed”, “speed endurance”, “endurance at speed” and “general” runs for distance. In winter, just 5-10% of your work might be at speed, 20% at speed endurance (for instance, longer reps of 1200m or so), 30% at “endurance at speed” (for example, tempo runs) and then 40-45% would constitute any remaining easy runs and your longer run that you might do on a Sunday.

But, in the summer, he would tweak workouts more towards speed: 10-15% at speed, around 25% at speed endurance, 30% tempo/threshold and 30% “the rest”.

I can certainly can vouch for the fact that this type of session is perfect for summer running – it’s short, easy to do even on a short flat stretch of road if you have no access to a track, and bearable even in a heatwave. Even 20 minutes would give you plenty of time for a 10-minute gentle jog warm up, some strides, then a few bursts of top speed.

And it’s certainly good preparation if you are aiming to see how fast you can run a mile – a distance that seems to be making a comeback after years of neglect. Certainly, it will give you a greater appreciation for how quickly Sir Roger Bannister ran when he flew around the Iffley Road track in under four minutes or indeed for Cram himself, given he still holds the European record of 3mins 46.32 secs.

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