Finding your speed: how to teach your legs to run faster

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The moment I fell behind my own shadow

One damp Tuesday, running alongside the river near my local park, my usual 5 km easy run was halfway done when my shadow suddenly raced ahead of me, slipping out of sight beyond a low wall. I’d just seen a version of myself I didn’t know was possible.

How do I turn that shadow into a reliable companion? It came down to three things: proper technique, what science tells us, and self-coaching.

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From foot-touch to fast-foot: the core concepts

1. Cadence: the rhythm of efficiency

Elite runners in research studies cluster around 180 steps per minute (spm). Not a universal law, but a useful marker. Shorter, quicker steps cut braking forces and maintain forward momentum. Overstriding (foot landing ahead of the knee) creates a tiny deceleration with each ground contact.

2. Arms, glutes, and forward lean

A 2022 biomechanical review pointed to three power levers runners often ignore:

• Arm pump: quicker arm turnover encourages the legs to pick up the pace. Keep elbows around 90°.
• Glute activation: your glutes are the body’s most powerful hip extensors. Squeezing them on the back drive propels you off the ground.
• Ankle-based forward lean: tip from the ankles, not the waist. That keeps your body stacked over your centre of gravity.

3. Perceived effort scale (1-10)

The RPE scale: 5-6 is conversational, 7-8 is working but not maxed, 9-10 means talking is almost impossible. Tying workouts to RPE lets the system adjust automatically. Hills, headwinds, or a bad night’s sleep all get factored in.

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A blueprint for speed work

Element	Why it works	Practical tip
Dynamic warm-up (10-15 min)	Raises core muscle temp, sharpens the nervous-system-muscle link (about 5% performance lift).	High-knees, butt-kicks, plus short strides at 90% effort (15 s each).
Short intervals (15-30 s)	Works fast-twitch muscle fibres without taxing your aerobic system.	6 × 20 s at RPE 9, with 60 s easy jogging in between.
Fartlek “speed play”	Simulates the ups and downs of racing, trains lactate clearance.	Pick landmarks and run hard toward them for 30-90 s, then jog easy.
Hill repeats (30-60 s)	Builds power and leg strength while quickening your stride.	Find a 5% grade, sprint to the top, walk back down, do 4-5 reps.
Strides (15-20 s)	Sharpens leg turnover at race speed without fatiguing you.	After an easy run, knock out 8-10 strides on flat terrain.

Progressive overload: your body changes only when demands keep rising slightly. A 12-week plan that lengthens intervals or increases hill grade is how you get real improvements.

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Becoming your own coach

• Personalised pace zones. Drop a recent race result into a calculator to get your easy, tempo, and interval zones.
• Adaptive training suggestions. The system watches your logs and steers the next day’s workout. Finish a tough hill session? It might point you toward an easy day.
• Custom workouts. Build a session from building blocks: 20-s pickups, 1-min recovery jogs, a 5-min tempo close. Save it, reuse it.
• Real-time feedback. A quiet audio ping when your cadence drops below target.
• Collections and community sharing. Browse what others built and adapt to your needs.

You set the direction, the tool gives you data, you do the work.

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A ready-to-run workout

A 30-minute speed workout. Distances in kilometres (1 km ≈ 0.62 mi).

Step	Description
Warm-up	10 min easy pace, then dynamic movement (high-knees, butt-kicks, 2 × 15-s strides).
Main set	6 × 30 s quick (RPE 9) followed by 90 s easy jogging. Aim for around 180 spm and forceful arm drive.
Cool-down	5 min easy jog plus gentle stretching.

Tips:

• Eyes forward, tilt from the ankles.
• In the first 15 s, count your steps quietly. Aim for 45-50 per leg.
• If you’re using a pacing tool, set the interval target a couple of seconds faster than your 5 km race pace.

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The road ahead

Getting faster is a rhythm of pushing your boundaries and listening to your body. Mix technique adjustments, workouts grounded in research, and a bit of tech that doesn’t override your judgment.

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References

• How to run (a bit) faster. – Dr Juliet McGrattan (Blog)
• 3 Speed Workouts And Warm-ups For Runners (Blog)
• How To Run Faster – Women’s Running UK (Blog)
• How To Run Faster – Women’s Running UK (Blog)
• 11 ways to run faster, according to an expert (Blog)
• RW’s 60-Second Guides: Speedwork (Blog)
• The Need for Speed - Modern Athlete (Blog)
• Your First Speed Sessions (Blog)