Most people are familiar with negative splits, where you run the 2nd half of your run or race faster than the first half. But a Progression Run is one where you gradually increase your pace throughout the run. This is a great run to add to your training when you’re training for distances 10k and farther. It’s great for building stamina and teaching your body to run faster the end of a race.

For most people, you want to start off at a conversational pace and each mile, increase your pace. It doesn’t have to be a big increase, even 10-20 seconds per mile is great. It does take practice though, because you’re learning to pace yourself. But when done properly, it goes a long way to helping you increase your speed and mental toughness!

Here’s my Progression Run from late this morning to give you an idea. Happy running! Stay hydrated!

When doing speedwork intervals, always make sure you allow a recovery period after each interval. Long enough to get your heart rate down. Sometimes you have to adjust, like when it’s crazy hot outside!

For example, today I decided to do one minute sprint intervals followed by 2 minutes of recovery. After jogging the first recovery, I decided to walk the remaining recoveries because of the effort I was putting out in the heat/humidity. I also slowed my speed pace because of the heat as well. Below is a screenshot of some of my intervals. I use a Garmin 235, so to record the intervals, I turn the Autolap OFF and press the Lap button after each interval. Most running watches have a similar feature.

Most beginning and even intermediate training schedules allow for walking some or all of the recovery. If you’re training to improve your endurance, learn to jog as much of the recovery as you can by building up. So if your recovery is 2 minutes, you walk the first 30-45 seconds, then ease into a jog to go into the next speed interval. And always make sure you do a good warm up and cool down of 10 min – 2 miles, depending on the amount of intervals you’re doing.

So don’t feel like you’re wimping out if you need to walk some of your recovery this summer. Just the fact that you’re doing speedwork over the summer is amazing!

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ABOUT COACH TIA

I’ve lived in Tampa, FL since getting married in 1991. I started running in the mid 90’s and completed a few 5k’s then my longest distance, a 15k in 1996.  Then I allowed life to get in the way and didn’t run again until 12/08 when I was 40.  I started back with that same 15k in 2/09.  I ran my first Half Marathon in 11/09, then my first full marathon in 2/2010. Since that time, I’ve run 120 Half Marathons, 10 Full Marathons and countless other race distances.  I have been an active member of BGR since 2010 and was an Ambassador for Tampa 2013-2015. I started coaching people in 2011 and became certified thru RRCA and USATF in 2013.  Since then, I have coached hundreds of people virtually all over the country from their first 5k to their best marathon time.  I was honored to serve as the National Coach for BGR! for their WalkB4URUN Training program in 2017.  I’m married to an amazing runner as well, and was able to coach him to run the Boston Marathon this year. I love helping people reach new goals!  I especially love helping newer runners learn to get better and more confident!