Learning how to increase endurance running is often far less complicated than we like to make it: easy runs, strength, mental training, eating enough…patience. But you want to know how to do it faster, so let’s look at what you can do immediately to see improvements.
Challenges never end with running and that’s part of what keeps us coming back.
Why can you crush 5 miles, but not 6?
Why do you fly through 10 miles, but need two weeks to recover from 13? This is the weird world of learning how your body handles increasing endurance through breakdowns and build ups.
The truth is that the more months and years you spend running, the better your endurance will be. But we can see changes in as little as 6 weeks. We’ll need to build both your cardiovascular and muscular endurance with strategic training.
Learn How to Run Longer
Some of these tips will sound like no-brainers. But more than likely, you aren’t doing them, or you wouldn’t be emailing me in utter frustration every week, so read them anyways!
1. Learn How to Run EASY
Timing: 80% of your total workouts for all 6 weeks
You need to get in more time on your feet and the only way that will happen is by lowering your fatigue in the early miles to allow you to go farther later.
Learning how to run farther is often first about learning how to truly run easy.
One of the best tools for this is Low Heart Rate training, which I have talked about extensively.
The basic idea is to build a base of aerobic fitness which allows you to continue running farther without raising your heart rate, which is what taxes the body and slows down recovery when we do it repeatedly for long distances.
- Stop paying attention to the pace on your watch
- Start paying attention to your rate of perceived exertion (effort level)
- Hot, humid running will feel harder and you will need to slow down more
- Some days in running simply feel easier or harder, using perceived effort allows you to continue building every day by adjusting your pace and getting in a good run.
- Allowing your runs to start feeling easier also makes is mentally easier to try going farther.
- Remember these are training runs, not race day. Your pace should be slower.
Once you break through a mileage barrier where you’ve been stuck your brain and body will open up to the possibilities.
2. Add Walking Time to The End of Your Workout
Timing: Every long run, but also can be done on any other run.
Believe that walking and being a runner aren’t compatible? Real runners don’t walk??
Or do they?! This is not about run-walk intervals (though you should be open to that too).
This is about adding walking to your routine, which does so much for allowing your body to get used to more time on your feet!
Many of my athletes have it programmed in to their plan to do more walking AFTER finishing long runs.
I’ve seen this repeatedly help them to build running endurance with less breakdown. Each week when you finish your long run, try walking for another 20-30 minutes. Within 4 weeks, you’ll notice that you could run just a little more on that long run while feeling good.
Why does walking help running endurance?
Let’s look at why I’ve found it so helpful:
- Walking builds endurance {consider it extra credit training}
- More time on your feet during training ensures you are race ready even after the expo and site exploring on race weekend
- One can walk much further than they can run
- It utilizes the same muscles without the impact
- Walking eases low back pain {an issue of many desk jockeys}
- Walking strengthens your feet
- Walking large hills activates the glutes without the heart rate raising intensity
Adding some walking to your routine might just help you run farther and faster by building leg strength, increasing lung capacity, reducing stress and burning extra calories.
Easy ways to do this are to add a mile of walking to the end of a run, take a lunchtime walk, or grab the family for an evening walk.
3. Add in Speed Work Appropriately
Timing: 1 workout per week
Speed work can indeed be part of improving your running stamina. Makes sense that we are stressing the body, it will break down and build back stronger. Here, our focus is going to be on shorter, sharper speed that really pushes the HR.
Over the course of a full training plan, you’d go in to more tempo runs and goal pace miles. But this is your 6 week focus.
BUT often more importantly slow running feels easier after hard workouts and we don’t mind going a little farther on those easy days. There is a lot of mental at play in running long distances.
- Start by adding running strides to an easy run each week
- Next add in hill workouts to build more leg strength — these have so many studies behind them proving they work
- Then add in fartlek workouts to play with speed
4. Include Strength Training
Timing: 2 full body sessions per week (seriously even in 6 weeks I’ve seen this create big leaps)
One of the reasons I love hill workouts is because it creates leg strength and encourages better running form.
You have to drive your knee up, rather than over extending the leg to make it up the hill. These two pieces together improve endurance and injury prevention.
But strength training in the gym is also really important. A strong core will aid your running endurance!
It not only increases power, but it gives you that muscular stamina we need. A weak muscle simply cannot do as much or hold you in proper alignment.
- Activate glutes workout
- Core workouts for runners
- Upper body workout for runners (provides more power for uphills)
- Hip strength workouts (again more power in your stride and less injuries)
- Complete Strength Training Plans for Runners
5. Add in a Second Run
Timing: 1 day per week for 3 weeks, then a cutback week
Once you’ve got a solid base of running, another common tool is running twice a day just one time per week.
Experienced runners will often do a speed workout in the morning and then recovery miles in the afternoon. But you can also do this with an easy morning run and then a short 20 minute easy afternoon run.
Remember this is going to require you to fuel well and pay attention to recovery. But by splittting up mileage, you can often get just a little more done in both sessions without pushing your HR too high. Cardiac drift is normal with longer runs, so by taking an 8 mile morning run and turning it in to 6 and 3 miles, you got in more miles with less fatigue.
6. Increase Your Pre-Run and Intra-Run Fuel
Timing: Fuel before every single run, intra-fuel on 90 minutes and longer
Even if you’re doing everything right, if you happen to be dehydrated and underfueling, you’re going to feel weak, fatigued, and mentally exhausted.
Fueling enough sounds simple, but underfueling due to a weight loss goal is a common issue which leads to a lot of problems. Checkout this article to help you figure out how much runners need to eat.
When it comes to fueling for your runs this really becomes a focus once they start to be over an hour for new runners or over 90 minutes for experienced runners. You need to aim for at least 45 grams of carbohydrates per hour and if increasing endurance is the goal, you should really work on getting to 60 grams per hour.
- What to eat before a long run
- How to fuel during a long run
- What to eat after a run to maximize recovery
- Best Energy Gels – This is how you’re going to hit that goal
7. Don’t Neglect Hydration
Timing: All day everyday and especially during long runs
Studies from the National Strength and Conditioning Association have found that being properly hydrated before, during, and after training can not only enhance performance, but also delay fatigue.
Don’t forget your electrolytes! Having balanced electrolytes in your body can help prevent muscle cramping, fatigue, and decreased performance. That means checking out the sodium and not using something like Nuun, but go for Nuun sport with the higher sodium and even some carbs.
8. Prioritize Rest and Recovery – No Running Daily
Timing: At least 1 rest day per week, every 4th week should be a cutback week
According to a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, the actual act of exercising isn’t what improves fitness and endurance. It’s the repair and rebuild phase that does.
Making sure you follow your training plan and resting on your rest days is crucial for building endurance. A good plan is going to have you build, then take a deload week. We often try to skip this thinking we’ll make faster progress, but it actually slows you down.
Getting a good night’s sleep is essential as well. It’ll allow your body to work longer and harder simultaneously, which is the crux of what endurance entails.
9. Beat Running Boredom
This one rarely enters my mind, but I hear it so often “how do you keep going, I just get so bored!”
Of course you aren’t going to keep pushing the distance if it’s boring and why would you? A few ways to make it more interesting:
- Running in new places, while actually paying attention to what’s around you
- Try trail running – this will also help your endurance when back on the roads
- Practice my treadmill boredom beaters
- Ask friends to run with you
- Join a running group
- Don’t try to run daily, mix in other cross training activities
- Listen to audiobooks or podcasts instead of music
10. Set Realistic Distance Goals
Maybe one of the reasons you aren’t increasing your distance is the goals you set. Are you trying to go from one mile to your first 10K and feeling like you’ve signed up to climb Mount Everest?
Stop focusing on the ultimate goal and look at today’s goal.
Today you simply need to go one step farther than you did yesterday and it’s a success, you’ve officially improved your running stamina.
Those little steps add up, stop discounting them! Minus Dean Karnazes, few of us head on our first run and conquer the world.
We do it little by little.
Consistently showing up.
Embracing the bad runs.
Believing we can.
That’s right, as much as running is about getting your lungs, heart and legs on board, it’s all a bust if you don’t get your brain in the game.
That’s when your body can truly put in the effort it requires to build endurance.
BONUS: Don’t Run Daily, But Stay Consistent
Training consistently is one of the most important things you can do to build endurance.
Being consistent will increase your aerobic capacity, which is how much oxygen your muscles can use. It’ll also strengthen your muscles, improve overall endurance and allow you to run farther than you can right now.
All these tips go hand in hand, you can’t do one and not the other.
Be consistent, but don’t neglect your rest days. Eat a balanced diet, while staying hydrated. Add speed work properly, but don’t be afraid to walk.
And finally, a popular question: Should you run every day to increase your endurance?
No.
Here’s why I don’t think the majority of runners should run daily.
Instead, checkout how often should I run to see where you fall in terms of experience and goals.
Endurance vs Stamina
Endurance and stamina are similar, yet different.
The techniques I’ve listed above apply to building your endurance as well as your stamina, but it’s important to understand the difference.
Stamina is the muscular, as well as mental ability, to sustain an activity for a long period. So when you hear anything being said about stamina, it’s usually referring to the feeling of being energetic or peppy while doing an activity.
Endurance, on the other hand, refers to your body’s actual physical muscular and cardiac capacity to perform an exercise for an extended period.
So, stamina deals a lot more with your attitude and state of mind, as well as elements of endurance. But endurance is a physically quantifiable component of physical fitness. Stamina, in turn, is a result of becoming fitter.
Confused? Don’t be.
Just remember that your mind is a big piece of the training puzzle. It’s going to help you run farther and faster.
All right that is a boatload of information to help you improve your running endurance and stamina, but it all boils down to some basics. I hope you’ve gotten some tips you can take away to start implementing right now.
Don’t over complicate the process. Just start.
Since I love this topic so much I’ve covered it in video and detailed below.
Looking for more training tips?
- What to Do After Couch to 5k Training
- 12 Week Half Marathon Training Plans
- Running in the Heat and Humidity
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