1.  Go to Bed Earlier. Runners in the habit of staying up late are not likely the runners who get up early to train. Early morning training can be one of your best bets to better overall running because it sets the stage for a whole different kind of day. First
   

   Early to bed, early to rise, makes a good runner healthy wealthy and wise.

   off, you don’t start your day by eating, or overeating. Instead, you get out for a fresh run and come back and are much more likely to think healthy food instead of comfort food. But it all starts with going to bed early enough to get good rest and rise early enough to fit in a good run.

2.  Buy new shoes. Runners in the habit of stretching the life of their shoes are runners who tend to have chronic or nagging injuries, or just don’t feel good when they’re out on the road or trail. The longer you run in your shoes the more your biomechanical deficiencies show up in your stride pattern. If you’re into the minimalist thing you can probably ignore this touch of advice, but if you’re one of the many people who keep their shoes a month too long and feel saggy and hurting every time you run, go to your running store and cure the problem. You’ll run better right away.
3.  Have sex. Sex is one of the best training and racing tools around. A body released from physical tension of a sexual sort is actually capable of performing at a higher level than one wracked by sexual tension and the anxiety that comes with it. Many running coaches will tell you… “Make sure you run relaxed.” Yet the one thing we can do to feel more relaxed and
   

   No butts about it. Sex can be good for everyone.

   literally be more relaxed is somehow out of bounds? Absurb. Having sex will enhance your performance, not detract from it. Don’t believe the crap about being less competitive or less motivated because you released sexual tension. It’s a lie fomented by the type of coaches who are control freaks and want to keep you for themselves. Even sex with yourself is better than no sex at all. Your body was not designed, shall we say, to hold all that in. Get your rocks or rolls off and get your PR on. 

4. Do strength work, and forget the club or the weights. The simplest and most effective type of strength work uses no weights, so it is easy to accomplish anywhere and prepares your body for training or competition. The single most important exercise for runners is the one-legged squat, in which you lift one calf to a 90 degree angle and lower your body in a controlled dip as if you were trying to touch the knee of the raised leg to the ground. That exercise strengthens vital quad and thigh muscles, butt muscles and even your hamstrings. You’ll find it especially helpful in strengthening those hip flexors as well. For the upper body do planks for stomach strength, pushups for arm and shoulder strength and you’ll be doing yourself a favor every day.
5. Eat less sugar and carbs.  Sugar is the actual enemy of consistent performance because it spikes insulin and throws your whole dietary chemistry out of balance. Craving sugar usually results in replacing healthier foods with sweets. So you’re going out the door with a disadvantage right way. But you don’t have to go cold turkey on sweets. Just plan ahead for your workday snacking with some carrots and dip, an apple or orange or banana and skip the cookies or chocolate bar. It’s that simple. 
6. Run during the lunch hour 1-2 times a week. Getting out the door during lunch hour rather than diving into another comfort food lunch will improve lots of things in your training. Sure, if you don’t have a shower to use it can be a little grimy to run during the day, especially in the summer. So be practical an only run on cool days, perhaps in spring, fall and winter. There’s plenty of daylight during the summer months that you can rise early or run late and not wind up in the dark. But you’ll find that cranking out 4 miles at lunch leaves you time to change in and out of your running clothes. Just bring a bag of those self-shower wipes used by hospitals and change in some discreet bathroom and no one will think you’re weird or smell bad. Or change in your car at a park so long as you’re well out of sight. You’ll feel better, break up your workday and be less inclined to skip a workout if you head out during the noon hour.
7. Fix your stride. This one may take some help, but many runners have really poor running form that is holding them back from achieving their goals. Form coaches are rare and can
   

   A well conditioned stride makes you faster.

   be expensive, but if you can get out with a runner who’s a little better than you and knows form, and do a short digital video of your running form together, the effect can be transformational. Not enough runners see moving pictures of themselves to learn how their upper body carriage, arm swing and foot plant affect how fast they can go. Yet a little analysis can help you go a long way, a lot faster. 

8. Make a plan to run with people faster than you. Forcing yourself to run with faster groups is the only real way to get better. Don’t make excuses if you get dropped. Finish the prescribed distance and come back the next week to try again.
   

   Athletes on the Multisport Madness Triathlon Team gather for a quick team photo between intervals.

   Telling yourself you “had a bad day” is bullshit. You’ll have a good day when you work hard enough and long enough to actually stick with the better runners. It may hurt and you won’t feel or look good, but results are what counts when you want to get better. Stretch yourself and be glad for the pain. It means you’re really trying to get better, not just fooling yourself.

9. Run fast and short if you’re planning to go long.Few runners appreciate the fact that running short, fast intervals actually has benefits to their longer races, especially distances
   

   People who run fast over short distances find it easier to race with more efficiency over long distances.

   over a half marathon. The effects of increasing your stride rate and turnover are both real and perceptual. Running fast literally lengthens and strengthens your leg muscles in a greater arc of motion than does slow running. This added “capacity” actually enhances efficiency when you’ve shortened your stride length and are running a pace considerably less fast than the interval pace. For example, if you plan to race a 5K at 6:00 pace, running a set of eight 200-meter intervals at 35-40 seconds per 200 is a bit faster than your target pace and will make your race pace feel easier. But if you are planning a marathon at 8:00 pace, running a set of eight 400s at 1:30-1:45 is ideal for stretching your “muscle memory” so that running your race pace feels easier. The idea of intervals is always to enhance speed, but the side-benefit is making your goal pace seem easier.

10. Run long to last longer when your race is short. These counterintuitive statements are no so much contradictory as they are imaginatively practical. While you can compete at the
    

    Eck eck eck. Ye’ah gotsk tah run long sometimesk.

    5K or 10K distance very effectively on 30 miles weeks built around speedplay and interval work, there is much to be said for getting in at least one 10-12 miler per week if you want to build insurance for the last 1/3 of any race under 20K. In the 1980s several speedy distance runners and especially a racer named Doug Padilla followed a low-mileage, high intensity program designed by a Stanford coach named Brooks Johnson. Yet the talented Padilla still got in at least one longer run per week as insurance for endurance. 

There you have it. 10 practical ways to get faster as a runner by starting today. There’s nothing here that requires special shoes, special training, special equipment or even anyone else to help you do it. If you know how to use the self-timer on a digital camera, you can even do Lucky #7 yourself. Have at it. And see you at the races.