This is something I Iearnt recently about running fast, which surprisingly I was never taught  at school, but read in an article by Ben Greenfield a few weeks back.

When you watch a sprinter, you can see their legs from the hip to the knee stretched out in front of them, sometimes nearer to parallel with the ground than vertical.  This is because the strides can be faster.  When you move a shorter length of leg from the knee to the foot, through a stride, it’s much easier and faster than moving the whole leg from the hip down through a stride.

It takes some drilling and getting used to, and it uses some different muscles too. The first time I tried this technique I found that the muscles on the inside of my leg were really sore for a few days following. Luckily I’d only run 100 or so meters in the new fashion.  They were still sore after my next attempt a couple of days later, but then they built up and were OK.

I found that my speed increased without needing all that much more energy, so it has made quite a difference.  I find now that I can run with my lower legs making the most swing, for much greater distances and it’s far less effort.  The roadside seems to slip away beside me.  Then I slow down to a jog for a while ( in interval-training fashion ) and the wind on my face decreases again .

The other thing I learnt about running fast, I only discovered in my last sports carnival at High School (  which was really annoying, because if I’d known it earlier, I could have been a lot more impressive at school in sports ).  That is that when you sprint, if you stay on your toes, it makes a huge difference. Landing on your heal first, and then rolling forward on your foot to spring off, like you do on longer distance runs, slows you down a lot if you’re trying to sprint.

If you haven’t tried either these 2 things, you’ll find that ( singly or combined ) they can give you a huge burst of speed when you need it.

Work your way into a new running style gradiently though, because like all new physical activities, running in a different way for too great a distance can really leave your muscles feeling sore.  I find running in intervals is really good – where I go fast for a distance, then jog for a similar distance, and so on. It works well with duathlon training especially, because you can include a bike ride here and there to use different muscles. It can help a lot to vary the muscles you use so that they don’t get worn out, while you can still keep in regular exercise and not lose any benefits of training