RUN A FASTER MILE

If you are unfit, any running will make you fitter. Doing a walk/jog/run every other

day for 30 minutes (say) would improve your fitness and reduce your one-mile time.
Your ‘training programme’ would essentially be to get outside and move faster three
or four times a week. A formerly sedentary individual who did this for six months
would be rewarded with dramatic improvements in fitness. So, the most important
thing is to be consistent - consistency is king; sticking with a basic plan is always
better than starting a training programme which looks like a science project, but
giving up after three weeks.

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I make the assumption you are not a complete non-runner or terribly unfit. If you are,
buy some comfortable training shoes and appropriate non-restrictive light clothing,
find a non-demanding route (preferably free from traffic) and complete ten (or more,
if necessary) weeks of the 30 minutes, 3 or 4 x’s a week as mentioned above. At first
your target is just to increase your average pace for half-an-hour, a combination of
walking and slow jogging. Then faster walking and jogging. Then more jogging and
less walking. In time you will be able to jog for 30 minutes without the need for
walking – welcome to the world of running!

As you progress, you’ll be able to complete the same distance faster - however, the
beginner’s objective should be to get used to running 30 minutes continuously,
regardless of distance covered. One of the conditions necessary to run a fast mile is to
be able run three or four miles comfortably (more on this later). As you get fitter and
faster the length of your course needs to increase.

If you are overweight you will need to sort out your diet (not the focus of this pdf). As
a beginner, losing weight will do more to boost your running, than running will do to
reduce your bodyweight. It goes without saying that you should be generally
physically active every day not just your running days.

Note: Although it’s nice to run with other people, do not rely on social support, rely
on yourself.

Once you can run for 30 minutes with no distress get back to this pdf. You are ready
to target the Mile.

Why a Mile?

Look at the front cover of any running magazine - you’ll see, ‘improve your 10k’;
‘how to run a faster half-marathon’; ‘a 26-week training guide for running your best
marathon’ - an emphasis on long-distance running. Inside you’ll likely find a piece on
how to deal with running injuries, most as a result of chronic mileage. Chronic
mileage coupled with inappropriate trainers, hard surfaces, excess bodyweight,
morphological asymmetries, muscular imbalances, less than perfect running
mechanics, and so on, will always lead to injury. Some of the injuries will become
chronic (whilst training) and some will ‘disappear’ when not exercising but reappear
(maybe years later) soon after resuming anything harder than easy training (the bane
of many former athletes).

Long-distance running is a repetitive strain injury waiting to happen. It attracts the
obsessive compulsive and the out-of-shape charity fundraiser who is ill-suited for
running long distances. To be fair, when we consider dose-response, volume and
intensity - any form of serious running training can (and will) lead to injury,
regardless of distance. But the problem with long-distance running is non-intense
volume can lead to injury, i.e., mileage is the problem not just intensity. To improve
your marathon, you have to put in the miles.

Training for the mile clips the problems arising from chronic mileage yet delivers all
the physiological benefits. Indeed, it delivers more benefits. However, there is no need
for you to train like an elite athlete. You can - but you should understand that with the
pursuit of optimisation comes negatives. It may seem I am contradicting the reason for
this pdf, “run a faster mile” – I’m not, you can most certainly improve your mile time
with structured, specific, consistent training, but there is no rush and no need to
overdo it. Train hard but don’t repeatedly smash yourself up, Stay healthy.

Reversal – when you do your one-mile time trial you should run your absolute guts
out. This is what you are training for. Running full-pelt for a mile is fearsome, it will
hurt – but you chose it. Embrace it, don’t be a wimp.

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1 So, the first benefit of training for a mile is that it’s not a long distance!

2 Training for the mile will make you a better runner at longer distances. If you do
decide to run longer distances you benefit by decreasing your one-mile time as your
sub-max mile pace will have improved. Elite marathoners can run 4 minutes flat for a

mile; a 2:05 marathoner is running on average 4:47 per mile for 26.2 miles non-stop.
You have a mathematical and physiological barrier against running sub-4hrs for a
marathon if your best one mile is 7 mins 15secs. Note: we can’t assume that every
elite marathoner has run a 4min mile only that they have the ability to.

4 One-mile training (within reason) won’t negatively impact your strength training or
other fitness goals – you can get in great aerobic shape whilst maintaining muscle
mass. It won’t impede your other non-running fitness goals. It can fit into your normal
lifestyle and not take over.

5 As well as improvements in your aerobic capacity, your anaerobic-lactic acid
‘emergency’ energy system will be developed from the type of training necessary to
run a quality mile. Being able to run fast for five or six minutes non-stop is all the
fitness you’ll ever need.

6 Running one mile is a quick (but hard) fitness test – it only takes a few minutes

Below are the male and female outdoor one-mile world records, and age-graded world
records (from Wikipedia).

Men 3:43.13 Hicham El Guerrouj

Women 4:12.33 Sifan Hassan

I can only guess what the population norms are for these age groups (the data is
unreliable) but I expect there is a wide spread of times. If you are a running type and
can get within two minutes of your age-group record, you’re probably in the top 1-5%.
Personal
The ability to run a mile superfast a mile makes you feel heroic. The sense of dynamic
health you get from it isn’t replicated by the slower running of longer distances. To
run a good mile all your energetic systems are developed and enhanced, your high-
output muscular endurance supreme and your mentality indomitable. Your heart and
lungs are conditioned for any acute physical challenge that life can throw at it. When
you are fresh and recovered from training you have the sense of a reduction in gravity
and inertia in everyday life. The feeling is superb.
Unlike longer distances, there cannot be any meditational aspect to running a killer
mile; you can’t dissociate from the effort – you try to but it’s impossible. It’s one mile
of self-talk. You have to slay the dragon with every step. This takes courage, will, and
determination. If you don’t experience this during your mile time trial you haven’t run
fast enough.
Training for the mile means mining the anaerobic energy system as well as the
aerobic, this involves a greater variety of training than for the marathon. The
uninitiated consider the marathon as the supreme running test, but the marathon is

only the slow accumulation of fatigue whereas the mile is like a cage-fight; from the
start it is trying to knock the crap out of you. It’s beautiful.

Run a mile, superfast, non-stop.

Determinants of Running Performance

Whatever your goal (in this case a faster mile) there are modifiable & non-modifiable
requirements for performance. As you go from beginner to maximising your potential,
your training timeline is gross improvements, then smaller improvements, then
marginal gains, then eventually, ‘holding’, which is an art in itself.

There is nothing that can be done about non-modifiable determinants (if they are truly
non-modifiable) so your focus should be to mine the major to minor modifiable
elements. For gross improvements most of your energy should on the major
modifiable elements (major in that they have the most impact on improving
performance), more than the minor. This doesn’t preclude you introducing the minor
straightaway, only that you apportion your time appropriately.

There are two categories of determinant; 1/ Internal (your body); 2/ External
(everything else). It goes without saying that if you want to run faster at any distance,
you have to run, but there are more areas to consider which will help you improve.

- Training
- Energy systems
- Strength
- Morphology
- Footwear
- Running economy
- Nutrition
- Psychology
- Lifestyle
- Time trial
- Genetics

Let’s take a look (these are overviews, if you want a science project look elsewhere):

Training

See ‘Training’ section.

Energy systems

The source of energy for all muscle contractions is adenosine triphosphate (ATP). An
ATP molecule consists of one adenosine and three phosphate groups. These three
phosphate groups are linked to one another by two high-energy bonds. When one
phosphate group is removed by breaking a bond energy is released and ATP is
converted to adenosine diphosphate (ADP). This breakdown of ATP to release its
stored chemical energy is called hydrolysis (breakdown with water). ATP hydrolysis
is triggered by the arrival of an electrical impulse (action potential) at the sarcomere
(the muscle fibre) via the motor neuron (nerve).

The body only stores a small quantity of ATP within its muscle cells, enough to fuel a
few seconds of exercise. Therefore, the central limitation in exercise capacity lies in
the ability to maintain the availability (synthesis) of ATP. The energy required for
synthesis of ATP is stored in the body in various forms of carbohydrates, fats and
proteins, as well as creatine phosphate stored inside the muscle cells. Note: Protein
contributes a minimal amount under normal conditions.

The process of synthesising ATP (adding a phosphate group back to ADP) is called
phosphorylation. When this occurs in the presence of oxygen it is called aerobic
metabolism. When it occurs without oxygen it is called anaerobic metabolism. The
primary energy source for a given activity mostly depends on the intensity of the
muscle contractions.

The 3 energy pathways:

1 ATP-PC (anerobic-alactic or phosphagen system)
2 Anaerobic glycolytic (anaerobic-lactic or the lactate system)
3 Aerobic (slow glycolysis or oxidative phosphorylation)

ATP-PC

This is the ‘fast-acting’ and immediately available energy pathway. Around 100g of
ATP and 120g of phosphocreatine (PC, or creatine phosphate) are stored in the body,
mostly in the muscle cells. PC helps regenerate ATP by donating its phosphate group

to ADP (in the presence of the enzyme, creatine kinase), thereby turning ADP back
into ATP. ATP and PC are called 'high-energy' phosphates as large amounts of energy
are released quickly during their breakdown. As it is stored in muscle cells, PC is
readily available to produce ATP. This improves performance during periods of
intense (anaerobic) muscle use.

The ATP-PC system produces the greatest amount of power output but can only
sustain all-out exercise for 10-15 seconds; once depleted it takes at least 2-3 minutes

of rest for muscles to recover to its baseline store of ATP and creatine phosphate.

Anaerobic Glycolytic

During intense exercise, the rate of energy use in skeletal muscles can increase by a
100-fold. To meet this demand, muscle cells contain mitochondria. After the stored
ATP is depleted, the mitochondria convert nutrients (normally glucose, i.e.,
glycolysis) into ATP. This is called cell respiration. Under usual conditions this
occurs in the presence of oxygen. If there is a shortage of oxygen due to inadequate
supply (being unfit!) or high rate of use, the body relies on anaerobic respiration.

A by-product of anaerobic glycolysis is lactic acid. The lactic acid separates into a
hydrogen ions and lactate within the muscle fibres. Lactate is used as fuel in the
presence of oxygen. Elevated levels of hydrogen ions cause the muscle to become
more acidic – metabolic acidosis. The creation of lactic acid (which needs oxygen to
be broken down) generates an oxygen debt that needs to be repaid after exercise stops.
Why you keep breathing deeply after intense exercise. The anaerobic glycolytic
pathway can only produce enough energy to fuel 2 to 3 minutes of intense exercise.

Aerobic

In aerobic cell respiration, mitochondria use oxygen to convert glucose into ATP. The
process by which it does this is called the Krebs Cycle (also called the Citric Acid or
Tricarboxylic acid cycle). The Krebs cycle is a series of chemical reactions used by all
aerobic organisms to generate energy derived from carbohydrates, fats, and protein.
This is a complex process (as are all the energy pathways) way outside what needs to
be described here. What is pertinent is that it is a far more efficient system than
anaerobic respiration.

Aerobic cell respiration is the primary system used for low or moderate intensity
physical work. At low intensity exercise, fat is the primary fuel source. At higher
(aerobic) intensity the amount of fat used also increases, but the percentage of fat use

drops as the body relies more on carbohydrate (see chart below). Fat stores can
provide over thirty times the amount of energy as glycogen. Let’s not go into the
debate about fat-adaptation and keto-diets.

Relative use of fat and carbohydrate as fuel depends on exercise intensity

Source: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000960

Important note! Most exercise involves ATP being synthesised through a mix of all
three energy systems (ATP-PC, lactic, aerobic). What determines which system is
most dominant at any time is the intensity and duration of exercise.
Terms
Aerobic threshold (AeT) – the point at which your anaerobic energy system begins to
contribute more to your total energy production. Blood lactate levels starts to rise.
Aerobic energy production is still very dominant. For reasonably fit individuals, AeT
is around 72-80% of maximum heart-rate.
Anaerobic threshold (AT) – the point at which lactate clearance can no longer keep up
with accumulation. Beyond this point lactate accumulation begins to rise
exponentially. Both aerobic and anaerobic energy systems are still being utilised,
however, all additional energy production will be derived anaerobically. Also known
as Lactate threshold and OBLA (Onset of Blood Lactate Accumulation)

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VO2 Max
Your VO2 max is the maximal amount of oxygen you can utilise during exercise,
measured in ml/kg (millilitres per kilogram of bodyweight) per minute. It’s the
measure of your maximal aerobic capacity or aerobic efficiency. In common parlance,
‘fitness’. VO2max is a strong indicator of your endurance. There is evidence of
individual limits to how much one can increase VO2max with training, and evidence
that some individuals have innately higher VO2max levels or aerobic capacity.
Another factor is how close to your VO2 max you can work without hitting your
anaerobic threshold (described later in this section). This quality is what seems to
separate the great endurance athletes from the good ones.
Top milers have a VO2 max of 65 to 85 ml/kg/min. You can compare your VO2 max
to the normal population using the chart below.

Source: www.fitnescity.com/understanding-vo2-max

Four factors which affect VO2 max:
Training: Duh!
Age: After around age 30, VO2 max declines at a rate of 1-2% per year
Gender: Males naturally have a higher VO2 max than females
Altitude: The decrease in oxygen content at altitude reduces aerobic capacity

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Energy Systems Distribution

Source: International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism 29, 2;
10.1123/ijsnem.2018-0241

The above diagram highlights (amongst other things) the contribution of the aerobic
and anaerobic pathways to a range of distances under maximal effort. In track & field
the 1500m distance is often called the metric mile; a mile is actually 1609.34m. We
can see the metric mile is run 70 to 84% aerobically, and 16 - 30% anaerobically. The
range mostly reflects gender differences, individual variability, and the method of

measurement used. What makes the mile (and 800m) a fascinating (and very tough)
distance, is that it demands a high development of all energetic qualities. This
necessitates a variety of training sessions, each aimed at advancing a specific quality.
More on this in the ‘training’ section. You’ll notice the pace of the 1500m is higher
than the VO2 max (~100 to 115%), hence the demand for anaerobically derived
energy.
You’ll also notice the fibre type continuum. See the table below for an explanation of
these fibre types.

Muscle fibre types

https://blog.nasm.org/fitness/fast-twitch-vs-slow-twitch

All skeletal muscles are a mix of fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibre types. They
can be modified through exercise. Type I muscle fibres are developed through
endurance training - low resistance, high repetition, or long duration, low intensity.
Type II muscle fibres are developed through strength, power, and sprint
training. Resistance training increases the size of both fibre types. The challenge of
the runner is to maximise both, but in the right balance for a fast mile.

Strength

The purpose of strength training (for the mile) is to improve performance and prevent
injury. Strength training sessions are in addition to your running-based training. At a
basic level; get strong, do your sport. Never stray too far from that.

There is a general misconception that an endurance-based sport (in this case, running)
requires endurance type gym exercises, i.e., high repetitions of a low to moderate
weight. This is incorrect. Muscular endurance is improved during running, so
endurance training shouldn’t be the focus of resistance training.

Increasing strength increases propulsive power, tendon stiffness and the capacity of
the lower limbs to absorb the ground reaction force of each stride. It improves running
efficiency and economy. Increasing muscular strength and the stiffness of
muscles/tendons (for improved storage and release of energy) requires higher loads
and greater time under tension than running provides. This is the role of heavier
resistance training. Note that this is generally for an improvement in mass specific
strength – not the absolute strength of a powerlifter.

How much you adapt your current strength/gym training to improving the mile
depends on how serious you are. You can carry on with your normal gym sessions
without due concern. For you, the real improvement comes from general and specific
running sessions, not from resistance training. Remember that strength training is
additive to one-mile running training; it is the icing on the cake, not the cake. It
doesn’t matter how much strength you have if you are not running. Note: Serious
bodybuilding (hypertrophic) resistance training, however, will hamper mile progress
not only because running a fast mile is essentially a light person’s game, but also due
to the immense energetic and recovery demands that bodybuilding training imposes.

One can get very fast for the mile without having high levels of muscular strength, but
increases in relative strength (strength without bulk) will always be beneficial as long

as the training for it doesn’t overly impact your recovery and energy required for
running training. No doubt, elite milers have the potential to get bigger and stronger
but it would be at the expense of their mile performance – after a point, strength
training and running training are competing interests. Further, running training for the
mile clips how much strength and muscle can put on – again, competing interests.

This section isn’t about the type of exercise you should utilise only what you are
aiming for:

Aim

- increase lower body strength (inc. foot strength)
- increase core strength
- Increase upper body strength

[The first aim of strength training for running should be to cure gross muscular
weaknesses, which hamper performance, that running on its own doesn’t resolve. A
well thought out general strength routine should deal with this. The second aim of
strength training is to provide added benefits which boost performance]

Increasing core strength improves posture and improves the diagonal elastic support
mechanism (look it up) which enables transfer of forces between the lower body and
upper body while running. Increasing arm and shoulder strength helps with drive
(impulse) and sprint speed. Overall body strength enables you to hold a better running
posture, and maintain that position during the final quarter of the mile.

Too many people argue over which exercises are best. This is bone-headed. For the
vast majority of individuals it doesn’t matter whether they do lunges instead of squats,
or dips instead of bench-press, or one-arm rows over barbell rows. Don’t get bogged
down with irrelevant arguments.

Lower body – (calves, quads, hamstrings, glutes) sets of 6 to 8 reps suffice.

Mid-section – (waist, lower back) lower and higher reps; from 6 (lower back) to 20
(waist)

Upper body – (arms, chest, shoulders) lower and medium reps; from 6 to 10

The function of (and how they are worked during running) these sections of the body
has overlaps but also vary. The requirements and stresses are different (you run on
your legs not your arms!) This accounts for the different rep ranges in the gym.

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So-and-so said you should do higher reps, or x exercise, or never do deads….it doesn’t
matter. What you do need to do is place a greater stress on your muscles and tendons
than running delivers. That is the point of strength training.

Morphology

Stand at the finish line of a big city-centre marathon, you’ll notice the top finishers
have similar physiques. As the finishing times get slower the body shapes and sizes
begin to vary.

The architectural maxim, “form follows function”, and its reverse, “function follows
form”, neatly explains this. The requirements of the environment (in this case, running
a fast marathon) determines the nature (shape, form, physiology) of the participant,
and the nature of the participant determines which environment they will be best
suited to. The nature of the participant has modifiable and non-modifiable elements.
The requirements for a super-fast marathon are essentially non-modifiable (within the
rules). As the marathon time is extended the requirements to finish it get broader (you
only need legs, a heart and lungs).

Natural selection: This is the case for every sport where sheer power, strength, speed
or endurance are involved. These sports ‘select’ the individuals who have the
appropriate inherent qualities. As those individuals train for their sport, they enhance
the modifiable determinants they need to excel at that sport. The athlete makes the
sport, the sport makes the athlete.

The nature of the individual is not only determined by the domain but by the tails or
extremes of that domain. A swimmer is not a runner – but a runner is also not a runner
in that a marathoner is not a sprinter. That’s pretty obvious. But it doesn’t stop there; a
marathoner is not a marathoner. An elite marathon runner can run 4mins flat (or
better) for the mile. A 2hr10min marathoner is as different to a 4hr30min marathoner
as sprinter is to the average person off the street.

The other day I watched Nick Bare’s 4:53 mile run. A mile this fast is a fantastic
achievement for 99% of the population. What makes Nick’s run so remarkable is his
size and weight - 194lbs and 6ft tall. The smaller fellow on his left acted as the
pacemaker, his mile time around 35 seconds quicker. Note: Nick is a nice-looking
runner. I don’t mean I fancy him, idiot – only that he is relaxed, balanced, and
efficient looking; his running ‘aesthetics’ are good.

Nick shows you how good you can get even if your physique isn’t optimal for the
event. Btw; many good decathletes, who are big and powerful, can run a 5-minute
mile. The requirements to run a flat 5-minute mile are demanding but far less severe
than to run a 4:00minute mile.

Nick later on ran a 2:56 marathon, another great achievement at his size, but look how
much muscular weight he had to lose to achieve that time. Built like a tank to built
like an athlete.

Hicham El Guerrouj is the one-mile world record holder at 3mins 43.13secs, a time
astronomically faster than five minutes. Look at his bodyweight – significantly less
than the average person. His innate qualities coupled with the training resulted in the
ultimate one-mile performance.
Elite mile runners tend to be ectomorphic, they tend to have high calves and long
achilles tendons. They all have low body fat and low(ish) body weight. Some body
characteristics are modifiable to a point (fat and muscle); others not so (bone structure,
lever length, muscle insertions). Of course, there are internal mechanisms and
advantages; heart, lungs, muscle fibre type, physiology; all sorts of things – some of
which may make up for ‘deficits’ in the observable form (morphology).

Earlier on I wrote about strength - ‘getting strong’ essentially means to get relatively
stronger as far as the mile is concerned. However, relatively strong can be split into
two groups; it would be better to be able to squat twice your bodyweight (say) at
160lb bodyweight than at 210lbs bodyweight. The mile doesn’t favour big people
regardless of their relative strength. This doesn’t mean heavier people can’t run a
decent mile (as Nick Bare highlights) only that it favours smaller people. There are
energetic costs to being heavy. Again, as performances get closer to elite the body
shapes converge.

Observable morphology is essentially about physics; spring-mass, levers, centre of
mass, reaction forces, gravity, and so on; in itself these are immutable – some you can
modify, some you can ‘work around’ – you can eliminate the negative (to an extent)
and accentuate the positive. Your innate qualities coupled with the appropriate
training of the modifiable qualities ultimately determines how fast you will be able to
run a mile. How much you want to mine those qualities (optimise) is up to you.

Footwear

The three main considerations when choosing running footwear are:

1 The running surface
2 The training distance and event
3 The right fit for your feet

Recreational runners tend to stick to a pair of normal road-running shoes. More
serious athletes will use different shoes according to training surface, distance and
competition.

Types of running shoe:

Distance

Well-cushioned midsole (up to 35mm) with toe-drop or ‘heel offset’ (the drop
between midsole height and forefoot ~10-12mm). Primarily for road-running.

http://hub.therunningworks.net

Adidas adizero Boston 10
Middle-distance
Less cushioning. Less toe-drop. Lighter. Includes racing flats or ‘minimalist’ shoes.
Road or track running.

https://commons.wikimedia.org

Nike Zoom Rival Waffle 5
Spikes
Sprint – designed for sprint racing (60/100/200m) and specific sprint training.
Excellent traction. Replaceable screw in spikes (6mm+). Have a stiff spike plate
(forefoot) and very little or no heel support.

Saucony Showdown 5
Middle and long distance – some cushioning. More flexible forefoot than sprint
spikes.

Adidas adizero MD
Cross-country – grass, trail and off-road. With longer spikes for better grip on loose,
soft, wet or muddy conditions. Also, cross-country trainers without spikes but with a
more knobbled sole than a road shoe.

Altra Golden Spike

Other shoe types:
Cross-trainers – a multi-purpose training shoe. Not suitable for running.
Barefoot shoes – if you want to use these, fine, but I don’t recommend them. Mostly
marketing hype, neither do they reduce injury rates. Minimalist shoes have been
around long before ‘barefoot’ became popular. You are training for the mile, not to
‘strengthen your feet’ but to get faster for the mile.

Carbon plate shoes – new technology. Spikes or flats with an embedded carbon fibre
plate for energy return. Research shows they gives a % improvement in performance.
Expensive. Only necessary for serious athletes.

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You decide which training shoes are appropriate for you depending on the surface you
are running on and how many miles you are logging per week. I use medium-
cushioned trainers on road or dry grass, and middle-distance spikes for faster sessions
on grass or athletics track. Cross-country spikes are better for muddy conditions;
maybe I’ll get some or I’ll decide to convert to the road (or track) during winter when
off-road conditions get worse. I get a better feel for the surface with lighter less
cushioned trainers. If you are heavy maybe you’ll prefer more cushioned trainers?
Again, you decide. A good surface grip is essential, of course.

An extra consideration is fast time over ‘protection’ or comfort (see ‘time trial’
section), i.e., there are competing interests; you want trainers to reduce the impact of
the ground on your body but you don’t want them to absorb the energy (too much) of
each foot-strike - try running fast on a soft surface with highly cushioned trainers,
you’ll see what I mean. For easy or moderate speed training this isn’t a problem but if
you want to run fast; light, less-cushioned trainers are better. Maybe I am being too
binary - this is by degree; wearing heavier more cushioned training shoes for a fast
mile on the road will only be a few seconds slower than with lighter racing flats. For
me, feel is paramount, I don’t like the sensation of wearing ‘buckets’ on my feet.

Note: For injury avoidance, don’t;

- increase mileage (volume) or intensity of training abruptly
- suddenly change to a different type of training shoe for all your running workouts
- use non-grip trainers on a slippery or loose surface

Unless you are completely sure of the fit, don’t buy trainers online, you should try
them on first before purchase. They should feel comfortable in general, and in relation
to what you want them for. For instance, I like my spikes to be a tighter fit than my
normal running trainers but they still have to be right for my feet.

Your feet mould to the trainers, and your trainers mould to your feet. If you purchase
your trainers from a running shop, the staff should be able to determine whether you
are an over-pronator or supinator (look it up). If you are a pronator, shoes specifically
for supinators feel completely wrong.

To sum up;

Your running footwear should be appropriate to the surface, how many training miles
you log a week, and the ‘feel’ or fit to your feet. Maybe bodyweight should be
included; a 210lb runner needs more support (cushioning) than a 150lb runner; I’m
not sure – if you are heavy, find out for yourself.

Running economy

In populations with similar performance characteristics (VO2 max and lactate
threshold), running economy is the best predictor of performance. Running economy
means using the least amount of energy or effort to run at a given pace, regardless of
fitness. A runner with a good running economy expends less energy, and needs less
oxygen, than a runner with a poor running economy. The more you improve your
running economy, the better runner you’ll be.

A number of variables affect running economy; genetics, environment, running
surface, weight of clothing and type of footwear, fitness levels (running experience)
and biomechanics. Biomechanics can be split into running cycle, gait (inc, footstrike)
and posture (body position and running form). Additionally, being fatigued or sore
from training reduces your economy.

Apart from gross deficits there are no single components of running technique that
explain, to a significant degree, variation in running economy. A weighted sum of
factors affects running economy and efficient technique.

The eyeball test is a great indicator of how efficient a runner is. What do they look
like? What do you look like? If you’ve been told you land heavily (do you feel it?)
you probably do; this may be because you are heavy, you’re unfit, you haven’t done
enough running for your body to adapt, the wrong training shoes – a number of things.
Are you leaning forward too much? Leaning back? Is your arm carriage awkward?
Are you shoulders or hands tense? Do you lack strength? Is your stride too long?

Anecdote: I was at my local running track doing a warm-up for the session ahead,
when in came a group of elite Kenyan distance runners. I instantly noticed how
effortlessly they ran (‘effortlessness’ is an aesthetic quality of top sportspeople). I sat
on the side of the track and watched poetry in motion for thirty minutes. It was
beautiful. The sound on the track when they ran their 400 and 600m repeats was so
minimal, it was as if they were running on a two-inch cushion of air. Me being me, I

had to time it – they were running just below world record 800m pace, yet the lack of
tension in their faces and upper body, the sense of ease; was as if they were out on a
Sunday stroll. This was the most perfect example of running I had ever seen up close.
This is what got me into running – the sense of freedom and effortlessness; escaping
the gravitational pull of the Earth. It’s otherworldly, something like free-divers must
experience.

****************************

The objective of serious running training is getting from A to B as quickly as possible.
The form, gait, and footstrike for a 100m sprint isn’t the same as for a marathoner.
How you run at a given pace (within your specific fitness) is what enables you to run
faster at that distance. A 100m sprinter doesn’t run a 100m ‘economically’ in the same
way as a miler. They are using the most favourable way to apply force to the track
(and expend all their energy) to run fast for 10 seconds, whereas the miler (you) is
doing that for a few minutes. This necessitates a different technique. You don’t run a
mile in the same way as a 100m or a marathon (the ‘marathon shuffle’).

What’s the best way to improve your running economy? Apart from considerations
such as running surface (for instance, running on soft sand significantly reduces
economy), type of footwear, and having a low bodyweight, the best way is to run!
Consistent running will improve your running economy as your body adapts over
time. Cumulative distance causes long-term adaptations in skeletal muscle and a
gradual improvement in mechanical efficiency. If you seriously want to improve over
one-mile you should be able to run at least three or four miles comfortably (top milers
run more miles than this). This improves your VO2 max and your running economy.

Some tips:

Train at race pace: Runners are most economical at the running speed which they train
at. This means including training at the intended race pace (target one-mile pace).

Faster running: Faster interval training has been shown to improve running economy
more than low or moderate interval training.

Strength training: Improves propulsive power, stiffness and storage/release of elastic
energy. Think of weak, untoned muscles as a flat bicycle tyre.

Plyometric Training: Jumping, hopping, etc., has similar effects as strength training.

Look ahead: Don't look at your feet as you run. Your eyes should be focused on the
ground at least 10 to 20 feet ahead of you.

Posture: Keep your posture straight and upright. Try not to lean forwards of back as
you run.

Relaxed shoulders and hands: Tension is wasteful in running. Shoulders should be
relaxed and square, not hunched. Hands relaxed (not floppy) – not splayed or
clenched. Your arms should swing naturally from your shoulders not your elbows.
Elbows bent ~90 degrees.

Don't Bounce: ‘Vertical oscillation’ wastes a lot of energy. The higher you lift
yourself off the ground, the greater the shock you have to absorb when landing, and
the faster your legs will fatigue. If this is you, try taking shorter, lighter steps, and
increase your cadence.

Footstrike: There are three types of foot strike; 1 Heel strike; 2 Midfoot strike, and; 3
Forefoot strike. There is no solid evidence for which is best as far as running economy
is concerned (or for reducing injury rates). Note: Barefoot (or minimalist) running
favours midfoot and forefoot strike. Do whatever comes naturally to you, dependant
on terrain and footwear.

Nutrition

Three areas:

1 Food
2 Hydration
3 Supplements

Purpose:

- for a healthy life
- to help (specifically) with weight loss, muscle-building, etc
- to support training and recovery
- to support the Time Trial

It’s interesting how far one can get in sport without a good diet. Many top athletes
have a ‘poor’ diet - this is because innate ability is resistant to assaults at a young age.
It’s also why copying the dietary habits of an elite athlete, without thought, is a
mistake as far as health is concerned. Virtually all top endurance athletes not so long
ago grazed on high carbohydrate and simple-sugar diets (as recommended by sports
nutritionists) – a slow, insidious, metabolic disaster for health. This is what makes the,
“you can’t outrun a bad diet” mantra, quite meaningless as far as sport performance is

concerned - you can, for a long time, but it’s not good for health in the long run, and
certainly not when you’ve stopped serious training.

Translated: Diet matters, but not as much as you think for sports performance.

Training very hard for a sport turns you into an extremophile, so there may be parts of
your diet you need to adapt to support your efforts, but the base should always be a
healthy diet. How much you want to optimise your mile time guides what extra
nutritional support (generally, in the way of supplements) you may want to consider.
Those extras are entirely optional; whether you should take them is up to you.

Food

Whilst people debate whether a marathon can (or should) be done low-carb (fat-
adapted) or high carb, it is clear you don’t need a high-carb diet for non-brutal one-
mile training – a low to medium carb diet is quite acceptable. Neither do you need to
constantly eat; 2 or 3 meals a day is perfectly sufficient. I now only eat 2 meals a day;
much of my training is done in the morning, in a fasted state – I have no problems
with energy levels. If you are not a serious competitive athlete pushing yourself to the
limit, I see no reason why you should be overly concerned with ‘topping up your
energy stores’ before your next training session.

“The harder you train, the more calories you need” – in the past this led to athletes
emphasising more carbs to replenish muscle and liver glycogen stores, as if hard
training was only about energy use. If you feel you need more calories and your
macronutrient split is fine just eat more of what you’re already eating; there’s no need
to shift your macronutrient profile to more carbs.

Again: Many types of diet will support training, given adequate calories…but I want
to emphasise a diet for health, not only training.

Generally;

1 Protein mainly from animal sources – meat, fish and eggs (and dairy if you insist;
although many people find dairy mucus forming). Non-animal protein from pulses and
nuts are ok. Aim for one gram of protein for every pound of bodyweight. Does it
matter if you’re sometimes over or under? No.

2 Carbohydrate from low glycaemic food sources, plants, and fruit. I keep wheat and
cereals to an absolute minimum, and feel better for it. You do you. Note: Regardless

of what I or anyone else recommends, try things out for yourself – you are an
experiment of one. But when you vary your diet, do it forensically so you are not
fooling yourself. Most food related problems (in wealthy countries) come from the
expanded omnivore diet i.e., people eating stuff which harms them in some way. The
simpler and more nutritious your diet the better.

3 Animal and non-vegetable sources of fat (olives and avocados are fruit).

For hard trainers it’s best to eat as soon as you can after a workout; protein and carbs.
If you insist on eating simple sugars, this is the best time to do so (as is just before a
workout).

Your 4-point focus:

1 How many calories you need
2 Macronutrient split
3 Types of food (for each macronutrient)
4 When to eat

What I mean by ‘focus’ is not an anal adherence to these four areas (you are not a top
bodybuilder), but a general observance. This allows for randomness and the (good)
realities of life.

* The elimination or severe reduction of harmful nutrition (alcohol, sugars, junk food,
hyper-processed foods) in your diet is the most important part of a healthy nutritional
foundation. Excess alcohol is the worst of all worlds; it will negatively affect your
training whilst destroying your health in the long-term.

Hydration

Lack of water will kill you a long time before lack of food. However, I assume you
don’t live in Death Valley? Your hydration status is probably ok; don’t sweat it
(sorry). As as a mile is not a long distance there is probably no particular hydration
strategy you need whilst training for it, or before a time-trial. Drinking when you’re
thirsty is enough.

Past advice overplayed the need to optimise hydration (pushed by bottled water and
sports drinks companies) advising to drink as much as possible or eight glasses of
water a day. We know now that drinking copious amounts of water during the day, or

before (and during) a workout, is unnecessary. When you train you respond to internal
cues to drink when you are thirsty, that’s generally sufficient.
Sweating during exercise causes water loss from the body. If too much water is lost it
reduces blood volume, blood pressure (less oxygenated blood to the working
muscles), and it reduces your body’s ability to regulate core temp through sweating –
the result being a reduction in performance. If you sweat heavily during a workout, or
it is a hot day, you may need to take in more fluids during a workout, but you would
do that naturally, wouldn’t you? Sweating heavily during a long workout depletes
your sodium levels, however, drinking excessive amounts of water dilutes the already
depleted sodium levels in your blood (hyponaetraemia), so you may want to consider
an electrolyte replacement sports drink (or you can make your own).

Urine colour is a good is a good indicator of hydration:

Source: https://www.siasat.com

This was the only chart I could find which states that completely clear urine is
essentially over-hydration. Your urine doesn’t need to be completely clear. Your
hydration status changes throughout the day it is not necessary to keep a constant
check on it. Very dark urine (from dehydration) indicates you need to drink more, ok,
so drink more.
Supplements
Taking supplements – rationale:
1 to correct a nutritional deficiency (which the diet isn’t doing)

2 to combat/treat specific conditions, diseases or disorders
3 to support extremophile training or a specific goal

We are only interested in no. 3 for its potential to (both) aid one-mile training and to
optimise the one-mile time trial performance. It goes without saying that supplements
are not a substitute for good nutrition, neither will they make you good at any sport
without the appropriate training. Whether you want to take them is up to you.
However, virtually all motivated competitive athletes take (and have tried)
supplements of some kind, this is because it’s in the nature of the competitive beast to
try things they think may improve their performance – and, without doubt, some of
them do.

[Btw, by ‘supplements’ we mean any agent or substance (pills, powders, liquids),
supplied exogenously which are either not supplied by the diet or are in addition to the
amount the diet supplies]

There must be thousands of (legal) supplements on the market, most have no
beneficial effect (for your aims) whatsoever, some will provide marginal gains, others
will have noticeable beneficial effects. Some of the effects will be acute, as in a
central nervous system (CNS) stimulant, whereas others will work over time, say,
extra protein. Then there are supplements like creatine; its effect becomes noticeable
once you’ve reached the end of the 5-day loading phase.

To decide which supplements to try, you should consider;

- what are the qualities needed to achieve your aims?
- can any of those qualities be aided/enhanced via supplementation?
- which supplements fulfil that role?

The last two points are a minefield as the supplement business is chock-full of
hogwash, pseudo-research and marketing, playing on the hopes, dreams, and fears of
its buyers.

What I mean by qualities are the attributes; physical, metabolic, and psychological,
necessary for peak performance in your chosen pursuit. A supplement which enhances
the wrong attribute could be deleterious to your goal; for example, a CNS stimulant is
good for sprinting but harmful for shooting or archery.

We could say that qualities go from the general to the specific (sort of), i.e., a good
sleep and optimal recovery from training are general to all training, whereas the ability
to buffer/tolerate the accumulation of hydrogen ions (acidosis) is more specific to
running a fast mile. If you have excess body-fat a ‘fat-burner’ could be classed as
general and specific; damn…even then (going back to enhancing the wrong attributes)
you wouldn’t want low body-fat levels as a cold-water swimmer! So, define your aim,
define the qualities required, identify which supplements can enhance those qualities.
Again, whether you should take supplements is entirely up to you and how much you
want to maximise your performance. You can get very far without them.

If do decide to take them, I’m a firm believer the way forward is to experiment. Yes,
much of it will be a waste of money but you don’t know until you’ve tried. Regardless
of what I or anyone else says, try things out for yourself; what may work for others
may not work for you and vice versa. There is individual response.

Supplements for one-mile training and/or the time-trial:

For the mile, we would want to use supplements which increase aerobic ‘power’,
increase anaerobic power, buffer metabolic acidosis, and stimulate the CNS. World
Athletics (formerly, the IAAF) have outlined five supplements which have an
evidence base of doing that: caffeine, creatine, nitrate, beta-alanine and bicarbonate.

Briefly;

Caffeine

Caffeine is an adenosine receptor antagonist (it blocks adenosine receptors in the
brain); the resultant higher levels of dopamine and noradrenaline cause a wide range
of effects. Hundreds of studies have found that caffeine enhances and prolongs
exercise performance. It masks the perception of effort, fatigue and pain, and
increases mental acuity and focus. It is thermogenic, fat-burning and appetite
suppressing. The recommendation for its exercise boosting effects are doses of 3 to 13
mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight (mg/kg).

If you are habituated to caffeine (say, from drinking coffee) it is best to refrain from it
for a while to maximise its effects. Some studies recommend abstaining for as long as
two weeks; others conclude you only need 24hrs. Find out what time period (and
dose) is best for you. Some people are negatively affected by caffeine, it makes them
jittery and nervous; I wonder if this would be bad enough to negate its positive effects,
or worse, actually harm training or a one-mile time trial? I don’t know.

The problem with CNS stimulatory drugs is habituation. If you regularly use them for
training, over time you’ll need to take more to retain their desired effects. This
increases the likelihood of negative side-effects. My general advice is to check your
tolerance, and to infrequently use them only for really tough training sessions (if you
feel you need to) and time-trials or races.

Creatine

Supplementing with creatine has proven positive effects, the main one (as far as
exercise is concerned) is it increases phosphocreatine stores in the muscles. As we’ve
seen in ‘energy systems’, phosphocreatine (CP) helps regenerate ATP (the energy
substrate for all biological processes) by donating its phosphate group to ADP. This
improves performance during periods of intense (anaerobic) muscle use. Larger CP
reserves also aids faster recovery after intense exercise. Accordingly, creatine is
mostly used by sprinters, weightlifters. and other power athletes to maximise
explosive power and strength.

The negative effect of creatine supplementation, as far as middle-distance runners are
concerned, is that creatine increases water retention, a problem in weight sensitive
sports (I would put on 3-5lbs after the 5-day loading phase]. However, World
Athletics advises that 800m runners (may) still benefit from its supplementation in
that its positive effects outweigh the likely weight gain.

I believe it may have positives for the one-mile athlete also; indeed, a study showed
that long distance cyclists improved performance in the sprinting and uphill stages of
a 120-kilometre cycle even though the athletes’ bodyweight had increased. The final
quarter of a mile time-trial is exceedingly demanding, the ability to continue
generating a high-power output in the face of increasing acidosis and substrate
depletion, is a crucial aspect of maximising performance. This is where supplementing
with creatine may help.

If you want to give creatine a try, stick with the traditional protocol of loading for 4-5
days at 4 x 5grams a day, then a maintenance dose of 5grams per day.

Note: Creatine supplementation has greater positive effects on vegans and vegetarians,
due to lower levels of creatine in their diet, than omnivores/meat eaters.

Nitrate

Over the past few years Nitrate (NO3− ) supplementation has become increasingly
popular for its potential as an effective ergogenic aid. Nitrates are naturally found in
leafy greens, beetroot and other vegetables but taking them in more concentrated
doses can be helpful. Fortunately for us, current research finds that the effect of nitrate
is most pronounced in less-trained individuals…‘when taken acutely or chronically in
the range of ~5–16.8 mmol (~300–1041 mg NO3−) 2–3 h before exercise and
primarily in the case of exercise duration of ~10–17 min. Nitrate supplementation is
less pronounced in well-trained individuals (VO2max > 65 mL/kg/min). This is semi-
hilarious as a 65 VO2 max is way above most people’s aerobic fitness, i.e., ‘less
trained individuals’ . Note: I copy/pasted the italicised section from a research
paper, don’t sweat it.

Nitrates boost exercise performance via several mechanisms: decreased fatigue,
increased nutrient and oxygen delivery to the working muscles, increased excretion of
metabolic by-products of high-intensity exercise. It reduces ATP consumption during
muscle contraction, and reduces oxygen consumption during aerobic exercise. Note: A
blisteringly fast one-mile run is highly aerobic and highly lactic anaerobic, any dietary
or supplementation protocol which has benefits on these energy pathways is going to
benefit the mile, given that it’s not outweighed by any negative effects.

Around 500 grams of nitrate containing vegetables per day is generally enough to
supply an adequate amount, but this depends on the quality of the vegetables, which
soil they’ve grown on, and other factors. Nitrate works, no doubt; supplementation
(via beetroot juice, etc) may be a more convenient way to cover your athletic needs or
a deficit in your diet.

Note: I have never supplemented nitrates. I have no personal experiential observations
to make.

Beta-alanine

Beta-alanine (BA) is a non-essential amino acid obtained from foods such as meat,
poultry and fish. Unlike most amino acids BA isn’t used to synthesise protein but to
produce (with the help of Histidine) Carnosine in the muscles. Carnosine production is
limited by the level of BA, not histidine. Note: Similar to creatine, vegetarians and
vegans have less carnosine in their muscles (~50%) compared to omnivores.

As we’ve spoken about earlier, high-intensity exercise causes metabolic acidosis, i.e.,
the accumulation of hydrogen ions (H+). Intracellular pH drops from ~7.0 to ~6.6;
this is the main (not the only) contributing factor to fatigue. Carnosine serves as a

buffer, reducing the acidity in muscles during high-intensity exercise. Supplementing
with beta-alanine has been shown to elevate carnosine levels in muscles by as much as
80%, thereby increasing in your muscles buffering capacity.

[I have taken BA a number of times for (very) intense hill sessions, the sensation for
me was unexpected and quite exceptional. I could feel my leg muscles filling with
lactic (don’t nit-pick) near the top of the hill, but there was no associated negative
effect on my repeatable power production or speed. That’s the Holy Grail as far as
800m/1500m runners are concerned]

Research finds that BA supplementation improves athletic performance by reducing
fatigue, increasing endurance and boosting performance in high-intensity exercises.
However, rather like Nitrate supplementation, its positive effects appear to be stronger
in nontrained recreationally active individuals, with smaller, but still (potentially)
meaningful, effects in well-trained and elite athletes. A standard dosage of 4 to 6
grams daily (preferably with meals) for 2 to 4 weeks is enough to increase carnosine
stores significantly.

In case, you were thinking, “why don’t I just supplement with carnosine?” Findings
suggest that BA supplements are better at replenishing muscle carnosine levels than
taking carnosine itself.

Note: Supplementing with BS may cause paraesthesia (tingling of the skin) - usually
experienced in the face, neck and back of the hands. I’ve felt it, it’s irritating, but
there’s no evidence it’s harmful. I’m still alive.

Bicarbonate

Whereas beta-alanine is an intracellular buffer of acidosis, bicarbonate (sodium
bicarbonate [an alkaline salt]) is an extracellular buffer of acidosis. That’s the baking
soda in your kitchen cupboard. It’s cheap, and found in any supermarket.

Sodium bicarbonate has a pH of 8.4, it raises your blood pH slightly. Higher blood pH
allows acid to move from muscle cells into the bloodstream, returning their pH to 7.0,
this enabling the muscles to continue contracting and producing energy. Just what the
one-mile runner wants.

‘Bicarb’ should be taken as an acute dose (‘soda-loading’) before intense training or a
time-trial (or race). Decades of research has shown the efficacy of its mechanism to
reduce acidosis, however, its effects are variable, and highly individualised. Make

sure to try supplementing it in training before using it for a time-trial! Large doses mix
with stomach acids and creates gas, this can cause gut distress, ‘explosive’ diarrhoea
and vomiting. Don’t take if you have heart or kidney problems. Additionally, the extra
sodium from a high dose can cause an increase in blood pressure. I’ve tried bicarb, I
had no noticeable negative effects – but you decide whether you want to try it.

The recommended dose is 90–135mg per pound (200–300 mg/kg) body weight, taken
60–90 minutes before exercise. If that is too much for you, you can try taking it in 3 or
4 smaller doses over the day. Any ergogenic effect lasts only up to 24 hours after the
last dose.

****************************

If you are going to take supplements, the above are worth a try. Other supplements to
consider would address these general areas;

- aid recovery
- increase strength (but not hypertrophic)
- burn body fat (but you should be able to do this with the right diet, right?)
- improve other physiological/metabolic processes
- improve sleep

There are far too many supplements in these categories for me to discuss. If you are
interested in finding out more, there’s this thing called ‘google’.

Lastly;

Be wary of getting addicted to performance enhancing agents – it is easy to develop a
psychological dependence due to their performance effects and/or how they make you
feel. Many elite athletes are creatures of habit, remove something from their protocol,
they don’t feel right. If a supplement makes you feel stronger, more durable; more
aggressive, confident and focused, you can feel less of an athlete (or person) when you
remove it. If your self-image is defined by your sporting or performance prowess, it is
difficult to let go of anything which has a positive impact on it. The more driven you
are the more likely this will happen. Not to be too philosophical about it; but I think
the way to deal with it is to understand that life and the universe is not all about you.

Psychology

Your ability in the physical domain is bounded by your genetics; how much you mine
your ability (given a free society with access to opportunity) is determined by your
psychology. Some argue that an individual’s psychology is also genetically
determined; whatever, that’s a debate for another day.

The are two types of psychology or mindset we are concerned about;

1 the psychology of perseverance or adherence to a training to a goal - you won’t get
far if you’re a binge exerciser or weekend warrior type

2 the psychology of pushing yourself; call it ‘mental toughness’

To fulfil your potential in any sport you need both qualities.

The psychology of implementing and sticking to a training programme, being
consistent, and dealing with the challenges which training delivers is the foundation
for progressive improvement. I talk about this more in the ‘lifestyle’ section.

Here, I want to talk about the psychology of exertion.

The Rate of Perceived Exertion

The rate of perceived exertion (RPE) is a scale used to identify the intensity of
exercise based on how hard you feel your effort to be.

Source: https://sportsperformancetracking.com
Although RPE is a subjective measure of how hard the activity feels it correlates to the
physical, i.e. running a fast mile is harder than running a slow mile. Not complicated.
Expanded RPE scale;

Source: www.gobeyondexercise.com

Do you notice that a super-hard one mile is 10-level?! This is due to oxygen debt;
the necessity to produce energy anaerobically - the result is acidosis, your worst
enemy. Whereas slowing down in the marathon is (mostly) due to the effect of
substrate depletion and the metabolites of fatigue (prolonged effort), slowing down in
the mile is mainly caused by the metabolites (or effect) of acute effort. I italicised
‘mainly’ as no doubt some clever nitpicker will try to contradict.

Note: It’s virtually impossible to keep physically pushing yourself so that you cause
severe damage to your body (or die), the brain takes over (see, ‘central governor
theory’) - in the same way you can’t kill yourself by holding your breath.

Getting fitter from training results in your RPE at a given pace being reduced. Your
one-mile in ten minutes feels easier. Now you can work at a higher pace/level with the
same RPE you previously had at a slower pace.

Mental toughness is not the ability to tolerate a higher pace because your body has
adapted to it via training, but that you have psychologically adapted to tolerating more
pain. So, as you train and get fitter, not only do you get physically fitter, you should
also get mentally ‘fitter’ in that you get used to pushing yourself harder for longer.
Your psychological tolerance to a high RPE has improved.

So,

- you improve by getting fitter
- you improve by being able to tolerate more pain

In other words, a significant portion of performance improvement comes from being
mentally tougher.

If you are serious and want to maximise your one-mile performance you have to be
mentally tough! Of course, toughness has to be coupled with intelligence; there are
times to push yourself and times to back off. A time trial or race is the time to
essentially arrive DOA at the finish line.

It doesn’t end there; you can get mentally tougher as the natural result of consistent
training (you get used to it) but you can also decide to push yourself harder. Are you
going to? This is the real challenge; the real requirement for maximising your
potential; your indomitable spirit - you refuse to slow down in the face of increasing
pain. This is the mark of the real warrior – whether winner or heroic loser. There are

hard physical limits to performance, you aren’t there yet. You only get close to those
limits by being immensely psychologically tough or by being a lunatic.

Lifestyle

Your lifestyle should be congruent with your goals. If you are not adapting your
lifestyle to help achieve your training goals, either your goals are not physically or
energetically demanding, or you are deluding yourself in that your stated goals aren’t
really intrinsic goals, they are only your stated goals.

1 Learning to juggle 3 balls; non physically demanding goal - you can party every
night

2 Running a marathon in 2hrs 30mins; extremely physically demanding goal - you go
to bed by 10pm every night

3 Just aiming to complete a marathon; not too difficult - some lifestyle modification
required

The more you want to mine your potential over the mile, the more physically
demanding the training becomes. If you want to optimise your mile time as opposed to
just getting fitter or faster you need to support that aim by not doing stuff in your
normal life which harms it. This is the domain of the serious competitive athlete.
The serious athlete will fit everything around training; their lives are essentially boring
and repetitive, lacking spontaneity - a prison of their own choice.

I am not a believer in will power; will power isn’t required if you are serious about
your goal. Persistence, determination, consistency and the ability to put up with
frustration and setbacks all arise from intrinsic motivation. You adapt your life; not
staying up late, not losing sleep, limiting alcohol, or doing other physical activities
which negatively impacts your energy for training and recovery, or which increases
your chance of injury. A serious track athlete wouldn’t dream of playing a game of
football – it’s too much of a risk.

It’s not that you have to optimise your mile time or squeeze every last drop of genetic
potential out of your flesh and bones, only that your lifestyle has to be congruent with
your stated aim. If not, you don’t yet understand what your aim necessitates (you are
naïve) or you are bullshitting yourself. You decide how far you want to go, there is no
right or wrong decision. If you don’t want to wholesale change your life for a
demanding physical goal, that’s fine, your normal.

Time trial

As your training progresses your sessions give you a reasonable indicator of how fast
you could run a mile. However, sooner or later you will want to test yourself over the
actual distance – the Time Trial!

If you are training hard, it would be daft to sell yourself short on the day of the test, so
you should create (within reason) the most favourable conditions for a fast valid time.

Checklist:

1 A firm, flat, even, non-slip running surface – no undulations, not uphill or downhill

2 Light-weight trainers with an excellent grip. Spikes preferably, if running on a loose
surface

3 Shorts and a light t-shirt or running vest

4 A good, simple, timing system. If you are on your own you need a reliable sports
watch (which is easy to stop and start) with a clear digital display. If someone is
timing you it is essential they are reliable!

5 No headwind. Note: if you are running laps or a mile circuit (out-and-back) a
following wind will not make up for a headwind. A windless day is best

6 A warm but not overly hot day. Not raining.

7 Drinking lots of water before a mile TT is not necessary. Normal hydration status is
fine. You are only running for a few minutes.

8 The time of day when you have the most physical and psychological energy. You
should have figured this out from training

9 A good sleep and no (or minimal) alcohol the night before. Too much alcohol is
worse than lack of sleep. Lack of sleep before a TT in the morning will hardly affect
you

10 Have four or five days off from training so you are well-recovered and fresh for the
TT. Doing a hard session or going on a 20-mile hike a day or two before the TT will
negatively affect your mile time

11 If you want to take specific (legal) supplements to help your performance that’s up
to you. Just make sure; (i) you take them at the appropriate time before your TT, and;
(ii) you have tried them during training to assess their effect. You don’t want any
nasty surprises on the day.

11 A good warm-up prepares your muscles, heart, lungs, circulatory system, nervous
system and psychology and for maximal effort. Running your TT from ‘cold’ will
send you straight into oxygen debt and make your run pure hell. Your performance
will suffer.

Example warm-up:

- 2 to 4 minute jog
- 3 x 100m ‘strides’ i.e., faster runs

- 2 or 3 x 200m runs near, at, or just faster than target mile pace

This is very general - you can do more if you feel you need to, but don’t overdo it.
You’ll need a longer warm-up on a cold day than a hot day.

12 Pace yourself! Running hard for a mile is a pretty unpleasant experience (I won’t
sugar-coat it); setting off too fast for the first quarter will make it even more
unpleasant, and will lead to a slower overall time. Have in mind a starting pace that
you know you can sustain. If you have a friend timing you, they can encourage you
during the TT; call out the lap times, whatever. Maybe you can find someone faster
than you who you can use as a pacemaker? However, don’t be a wimp and go off too
slow either; this is meant to be hard!

13 As mentioned earlier, this is the time to push yourself very hard. If you are serious,
you should be virtually spent by the finish line. You may surprise yourself; the release
of adrenaline from your sympathetic nervous system’s fight or flight response may
allow your body to perform at a higher level than in training

Note: If you do before and after (x weeks of training) TT’s, be aware if there were
different conditions on the day of the TT; this will have contributed to non-training
variance of your resulting times. Example; if you ran your first TT on grass in flat
trainers but the second on a track in spikes, the variance simply due to this could be
more than 30 seconds.

Genetics

Training is the process of mining potential. What that potential is, is not in your
control.

Gross abilities such as strength, power, speed and endurance are determined by innate
qualities. What you make of those innate qualities is affected by various things;
environmental, culture, opportunity to train, a free society and, of course, how hard
you train and how dedicated you are. Genetics is what bounds your potential. You
may already have an idea of what your potential is, but you only really find out by
working hard over time. Note: Your rate of improvement over others with similar
training may be good initial indicator.

That genetics is the main factor which separates the elite from the rest of us is no
surprise to biologists and sports scientists. It’s a crude, graceless saying, but no sprint
coach would disagree that whilst you can make someone faster, “you can’t turn a
carthorse into a racehorse”. No sprinter gets to the top of the world without having a
genetic advantage over the majority of the planet.

It goes without saying that to reach the top of any global sport one has to train like a
demon, but the reality is that hard work alone is a poor predictor of success at top
level. The likelihood of attaining elite status just by working hard is statistically
minute. Hard work is necessary but nowhere near sufficient. To mine your potential in
a sport that is based on sheer physical ability you have to work damn hard, whether
that makes you better than the rest of the planet is not in your control. It is only a
predictor of how close you will get to your genetic (innate) potential.

Potential:

Only so many people can run a flat 4-minute mile
10 x more can run a sub 4.30 mile
50 x More can run a sub 5:00 mile
100 x more can run a sub 5.30 mile
Until 99% of the planet can ‘run’ a mile in 20 mins

[These are estimates, don’t get hung up on the figures]

The difference between a four-minute miler and a five-minute miler who are both
well-trained is not down to training. People insist on misunderstanding this point,

arguing it diminishes how much work the top athlete has point in, when in fact it’s the
opposite. Saying an athlete reached the top, “because they worked harder than
everyone else”, diminishes how hard the ‘losers’ worked. I see this in journalistic
eulogies of top athletes all the time, “they trained on Christmas day”, “they worked
more hours”, “they overcame a catalogue of injuries to become winners”, “they
trained in all conditions and weathers”, “they didn’t let set-backs bring them down”,
and so on – all survivorship bias, ignoring the athletes who did the same but never
reached the top.

The denial of the influence of genetics on top performance is in reality a criticism of
all the people who didn’t win.

*********************************

We don’t know what the upper bound is for elite athletic performance (you can find
prediction tables) but raw physical ability (a deeper mining of the genetic pool),
coupled with technology, supplemental aids, gene therapy, etc., means there will be
further improvements.

You don’t know what your limit for the mile is, how far you can get – moderate
training will give you a glimpse. Serious training will give you a greater indicator.
Balls-to-the-wall intense training which dominates your life will show you. If you are
a young able-bodied individual (and don’t run like a duck ), I’m certain you can
run sub-7minutes for the mile. If you can already do that, a flat 6 minutes is a great
aim. Anything below that is tremendous.

* If you are interested about the influence of genes on performance read, ‘Sports
Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance’ (2013) by David
Epstein, a great read about nature/nurture (innate/environmental) influences on
athletic performance. Also, check out epigenetics and canalisation.

TRAINING

Running a mile a day for eight weeks would improve the mile time of a relatively
unfit person, as would running 3 or 4 miles, three times per week. There are a number
of ways these could be performed; injecting faster sections, different routes, including
a hill, fast runs, slow runs, start the run slow and get faster, or start out as fast and hold
on (very uncomfortable), or simply the same pace (‘even pace’) for each run. Note: As
fitness would improve over time, even pace would either, (i) gradually lead to a faster

even pace, or, (ii) staying at the same pace but it feeling easier. I hope that makes
sense.

I assume you realise that any consistent running training in the one-mile energy
systems ballpark, would improve your mile performance. However, whilst there are
many roads to performance improvement, not all roads are the best. They may be
adequate for what you want, which is an entirely different (and perfectly acceptable)
matter.

How sophisticated your training sessions (and knowledge you need) depends on your
goals:

1 You simply want to get a bit fitter and improve your mile time. You can bolt your
one-mile training on to the training/fitness/activities you are already doing.

2 You are more serious about improving your mile. You need to adapt your current
activities to be more congruent with one-mile training.

3 You are very serious about maximising your potential over one mile. You should
fully tailor your activities to improving your one-mile time. You would need to drop
all activities which harm it.

I imagine you fall in categories 1 or 2. If you think your goal is category 3, you will
only be able to fool yourself for so long; reality will reframe what you really desire.
Serious training takes over your life. Are you prepared for that?

This diagram summarises what lies in front of you.

Framework of the interactions between the structural and physiological determinants of
performance (in white boxes) and potential nutritional interventions (black boxes) in
middle-distance athletes. It should be highlighted that performance determinates are a
continuum, with middle-distance athletes featuring both structural and physiological
elements. Some nutrition interventions are acute (e.g., caffeine), while others are chronic
in combination with training (e.g., creatine supplementation). A dotted line indicates a
potential training-induced nutritional adaptation. A question mark (?) highlights the
requirement for more scientific validation.
ATP = adenosine triphosphate; CHO = carbohydrate; EA = energy availability;
FFM = fat-free mass; HR = heart rate; La = lactate; LT = lactate threshold;
NM = neuromuscular; PCr = phosphocreatine; PRO = protein; RFD = rate of force
development; suppl. = supplementation; SV = stroke volume; VO2max = maximal oxygen
consumption.
Source: International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism 29, 2;

10.1123/ijsnem.2018-0241

Excuse my French, but the thought of seriously training for the mile scares me
shitless. At one time this diagram would have been a banquet to dine on, a source of
endless consideration and motivation – a bible to design my training around. It still

holds the sheer beauty of 800/1500m running, but I know it’s training implications -
brutality. You can have it.

****************************

I read somewhere that, “in order to improve your mile time, you have to know what
your mile time is first”. Well, not really. You’ll know if you’ve improved, you’ll feel
it - your running will feel easier and faster. But if you have a current mile time, all the
better, you have an objective measure. Once you’ve improved (after an appropriate
period of training) you’ll be able to measure that improvement with a new one-mile
time trial. I think this is the best way forward for motivational purposes; know your
current time then set a goal to aim for. Be realistic, if your current mile time is seven
minutes, is it likely you’ll be able to run five minutes flat in six months? If your aim is
“just to run faster”, without any definite time goal, all well and good.

Someone suggested I should break the training advice into four categories; novice,
intermediate, competitive & advanced – this seems like a reasonable suggestion.
However, it would involve writing an entire book. I’ve got other things to do in life
like fishing, knocking about the city, buying bitcoin and being a general nuisance.
There are plenty of books on the market you can buy, or internet searches you can
make, which will add to the training suggestions I give. What I present is a more than
adequate guide to enable a significant improvement in your one-mile time.

As far as specific running sessions are concerned you can adjust the repetition times
with reference to your target time-trial pace; henceforth, your ‘race pace’.

Example: Training race pace based on target mile times;

4 mins – 400m (60secs); 200m (30secs)
5 mins – 400m (75secs); 200m (37.5secs)
6 mins – 400m (90secs); 200m (45secs)
7 mins – 400m (1min 45secs); 200m (52.5secs)
8 mins – 400m (2mins); 200 (60secs)
9 mins – 400m (2mins 15 secs); 200m (67.5secs)

This relieves me of having to segment training sessions into different levels of ability.
You can decide how fast to run (repetitions/intervals) with reference to your target
one-mile goal. Again, be realistic, don’t a set stupidly hard one-mile goal, the sessions
will be too difficult to complete at that pace. Note: As an athlete gets closer to elite (or
their genetic potential, whatever level that is) not only does the quality of the session

improve but the nature of the session may have to change; but I can’t cover all
scenarios, give me a break!

The ultimate miler would be light, have the speed of a sprinter, the hop strength of a
long jumper, the endurance (VO2max) of a marathon runner, and a superhuman
ability to tolerate/buffer acidosis. Of course, this is pie-in-the-sky because these have
competing costs, and the more specialised the event (i.e., higher level) the more
specialised the nature of the beast. So, a top mile runner is a high level of many beasts
– this makes him/her a unique beast. A great miler has the capability (with the
appropriate training) to run 46-49secs for 400m, 11secs for 100m, and sub-2:20 for
the marathon.

Training for the mile requires a mix of modalities. Each modality is loaded for it’s
potential to improve performance depending on your starting state. Assess what your
current physical condition is, your strengths and weaknesses, and design your training
accordingly.

Running sessions

Aerobic endurance (VO2max), basic speed and speed endurance – these are the
essential qualities of a good one-mile runner. Very simply, you progress these by
training at three speeds; race pace, faster than race pace and slower than race pace.

Aerobic

We saw earlier that mile is run 70 to 84% aerobically. Improving your VO2max
(endurance, aerobic capacity, aerobic power, ‘fitness’) will lead to the biggest
improvements in your one-mile time. Developing your aerobic fitness pushes back the
requirements for anaerobically derived energy with its concomitant costs of acidosis,
oxygen debt and fatigue. You’ll be able to run at a faster pace (and for longer) before
reaching your aerobic and anaerobic thresholds. Translated: An unfit person fatigues
and gets out of breath very quickly going at the same pace as a fit person. Bypassing
the full development of the aerobic energy system will mean the most important
component for running a fast mile is missing.

Enhancing aerobic fitness means improving your body’s ability to deliver and utilise
oxygen. Aerobic training increases the heart’s stroke volume (how much blood it
pumps out in one beat), increases the capillary network (blood vessels that supply fuel
and oxygen to the muscles), increases the amount muscle mitochondria and

myoglobin, and increases the muscle enzymes that use oxygen to convert fat to
energy.

Speed and speed endurance

There are two types of speed that a miler requires; a good flat out top speed and a high
level sub-maximal speed which they can produce for a few minutes. Aerobic training
(as we’ve seen) leads to pushing the anaerobic threshold to the right, which is a good
thing, but it doesn’t help with lactic acid (acidosis) tolerance or improve top speed. In
fact, too much aerobic training can harm top speed.

How fast you can ultimately run a mile has a mathematical quality or bound – a mile
can only be run at a sub-maximal percentage of your top speed. If your top speed is
poor, even with the best quality aerobic training your sub-max speed is necessarily
limited. Who has the potential mathematically to run the faster mile, someone with a
12 second 100m or a 15 second 100m?

The concept is simple: The faster your top end speed, the faster your potential sub-
max speed. Ok, like most training it is not quite as simple as that – a 100m specialist
who can run 10-flat won’t be able to hold onto as a high a speed for a mile as an
endurance type athlete who can only run 11.5secs for 100m. A pure sprinter is a
different animal. But for you, increasing your basic speed within a one-mile training
framework will help.
The mile is an aerobic/anaerobic glycolytic event on top of speed, not a pure speed
event. The appropriate interval style training improves the body’s ability to buffer
acidosis allowing the muscles to work harder for longer – i.e., improved speed
endurance. Please note that I’ve simplified this almost to the point of misinformation

– but it will do for now.

Top speed (running when fresh) isn’t a fuel supply problem, it is a mechanical
(musculo-skeletal) quality acting on the ground. It is a skill. It becomes a fuel supply
and metabolite buffering problem when we want continual high speed. Interval
training, designed to improve anaerobic endurance, works the ATP-PC and the lactic
acid system, using short(ish) repetitions of high intensity running followed by rest
periods, allowing the body to fully or partially recover before the next rep.

I’ve left out the concept of speed reserve (the difference between an athlete’s
maximum speed and their maximum aerobic speed), as I am about to out for a walk –
if you want to find out more look it up. I don’t think it’s necessary to dive into it for
the level of this pdf.

Sessions:

I’ve put these in the order of aerobic, anaerobic, and basic speed:

- VO2 max – aerobic low-level and high-level work
- Anaerobic Glycolytic – repeatable speed, speed under fatigue, speed endurance
- ATP-PC – acceleration, top speed, speed when fresh

The essential way to train any physiological system is to create and regularly repeat a
stress that targets the system. However, apart from pure aerobic and pure sprint
sessions you’ll find that most of these suggestions work two (or even all three) of the
energy systems to a greater or lesser extent, impacted by the distances involved, the
number of reps and sets (volume), and the amount of recovery between efforts. So, we
are mostly concerned with the emphasis of the session. Know what quality you want
to work and choose the most appropriate session.

Note:

Warm-up: The more intense the running session the greater the requirement for a
warm-up. Going for a longer run there’s no need for a warm-up, maybe just a few
static and dynamic stretches for the lower and upper limbs. Faster interval type
sessions should always be preceded by a warm-up. A light jog, drills, some dynamic
stretches, and strides of increasing speed does the job. A good warm-up reduces the
injury risk of running hard from cold and prepares the body (and mind) for the effort
to come.

The interval type sessions are based on distance; see if you can find athletics track or
sports pitch where you know the distances. If there’s nothing appropriate near you it’s
ok to estimate the distances on grass, whatever. It matters for a serious competitive
runner to know the exact distances they are running but for most other people it’s not
crucial. But make sure your estimated distance isn’t so far out that the nature of the
session changes! The only ‘wearable’ you need is a reliable sports wrist watch to time
runs and recoveries.

- Easy continuous runs: 4 to 6 miles at talking pace
- Fast continuous runs: 3 to 6miles, can’t talk

- Progression runs: 3 to 5miles. Start slow, increase the pace every few minutes. Final
mile is hard.
- Fartlek: 4 to 6 miles. Fartlek is a Swedish word, meaning speed play. A continuous
run with varying speeds; easy sections, faster and short sprints. Changes of
pace/intensity throughout the session. Aerobic and anaerobic.

Intervals:

- 4 x 1000m. 5min btwn reps (slower than race pace)
- 3 x 1200m. 5mins btwn reps (slower than race pace
- 2 x 2000m. 6mins btwn reps (slower than race pace)
- 4 x 800m. 10mins btwn reps (race pace)
- 16 x 200m. 1mins btwn reps (race pace)
- 6 x 300m. 3mins btwn reps (fast)
- 3 x 500m. 8mins btwn reps (faster than race pace)
- 10 x 100m. 1min btwn reps (80-85% top speed)
- 4 x 400m. 5mins btwn reps (faster than race pace)
- 3 x 600m. 8 mins btwn reps (faster than race pace)
- 2 x 600m. 6mins btwn reps. 6min rest, followed by 3 x 200m. 5mins btwn reps
(faster than race pace)
- 300m fast - rest for 90 seconds then sprint 150m. Rest for five minutes. Repeat twice
- 100m (3mins recovery); 150m (4 mins); 200m (8mins); 200 (8mins); 150m (6mins);
100m (all fast)
- 2 x (4 x 300m). 4mins btwn reps; 10mins btwn sets (faster than race pace)
- 2 sets (4 x 200m). 3mins btwn reps. 10mins btwn sets (fast)
- 4 x 400m. 1mins btwn reps (faster than race pace)
- 2 sets (2 x 400m). 45secs btwn reps. 15mins btwn sets (fast)
- 3 sets (300m + 150m) 30secs btwn 300m and 150m. 6mins btwn sets (fast)
- 3 x 300m. 7mins btwn reps (fast)
- 100m (3mins); 150m (4 mins); 200m (8mins); 200 (8mins); 150m (6mins); 100m
(top speed)
- 4 x 150m. 6mins btwn reps (top speed)
- 40m, 60m, 80m, 100m, 120m, 150m; full recovery (top speed)

- 6 x 40m, running start; full recovery (top speed)

These sessions are suggestions - you can follow them, but interval sessions are limited
only to your imagination. The general idea is that intervals sessions are hard – even
though some are slower than race pace, the cumulative effect of volume or short
recoveries make the sessions demanding. Whichever qualities you want to develop
you can adjust the loading, interval times and distances appropriately. If you want to
run longer distances that’s up to you, but remember that once aerobic endurance is in
place you want to speed up your running.

Hill training

Is hill training necessary? Does hill training elicit benefits over and above another
type of training? Training hills makes you better at running up hills, does that make
you better at running on the flat? I’m not certain what the answer is. However, most
serious middle-distance runners incorporate hill sessions at some stage in their
training year, generally for ‘strength’ not speed. As far as I’m aware, what strength
means in the context of hills has never been properly explained. Leg strength? Aerobic
strength? Lactic strength (tolerance to acidosis)? Sprint strength? Endurance strength?
Psychological strength? I’ve read that hill training strengthens muscles around the
knee, the calves, hamstrings and glutes, and that it improves running form. But other
types of training (flat running and non-running) do that as well. Apparently, uphill
running means you recruit more muscle fibres due to less contribution from the elastic
recoil of tendons. Is that of any benefit? I’m not certain. However, the nature of the
real athlete is they try things which are uncertain, so give hills a go if you want. In
any case they add variety to your training, and are sort of fun - in a masochistic way

Hills session can be varied in the same way flat running can be varied; in addition,
you can throw in hills of different gradients. Sessions can be designed so they’re
reasonably easy or brutally hard. Either way, I think it’s better to have a reasonable
amount of fitness before you undertake hill training.

Generally, a hill session involves acidosis/oxygen debt to some extent; 6 x 150m+
hills with 3 mins between doesn’t involve all-out sprinting but a high sub-max. Pure
sprint sessions i.e., all-out effort (speed is naturally reduced, you’re on a hill!)
involves fast short reps with relatively long recoveries (ATP-PC system) where there
is no acidosis.

Some suggestions: