I have been taken aback lately as friends have asked me for running advice. I guess it's all relative, because I have a lot of people who are faster than me to whom I turn for tips. Of course they, too, are probably taking notes from someone they look up to. That's the wonderful thing about learning - there is always someone more accomplished or older than you who can provide some helpful perspective.

Everybody, of course, asks how they can get faster. I think the first thing that everyone needs to keep in mind is the fact that genetics are the primary determining factor in one's potential speed. Sure, there are a lot of other skills which can be honed, but it's impossible to truly love the sport without first accepting your own physiological lot in life. Focusing more on personal development and improvement than competing with the Kenyan national team will help you find solace in the factors you can control while embracing the ones you can't control.

I could probably write hundreds of blog postings regarding the things I have learned about hydration, nutrition, race tactics, form, etc. However, today I'll just stick to one oversight that most people make in their training: varying your runs. You can find many endurance training programs (commonly used ones are the Hal Higdon program, the Jeff Galloway program, and the Boston Athletic Association program, but I have found the Runners World SmartCoach to be better for me) that differ in some ways, but the commonality that all of them share is in their four types of workouts:

Easy Runs - This is what most people do every time they put on their running shoes. It's a run of 20-50% of your goal distance at a pace up to a minute per mile slower than you plan to race (for example, a 2-hour half-marathoner might do easy runs of up to 7 miles at 10:20/mi pace). These runs are great for maintenance, recovery and calorie-burning, but they're not going to make you much faster.

Intervals - I could bore you with a bunch of details on types of muscle fibers, metabolic systems and lactic acid processing, but I'll keep it simple: you need to do some running while you're out of breath and your heart is pounding. By ratcheting up your speed a few notches, you'll train your body to process waste materials more efficiently and you'll improve your race pace significantly. Essentially, you will run fast during each interval and you will take a recovery period in between to let your heart rate come back down.

Should you lace up your track spikes for a bunch of sprints? Not likely, unless you're a sprinter. An endurance athlete simply needs to stress his/her lactate threshold, which can be estimated as the pace at which you can run for one hour (for example, a 3-hour marathoner will likely have a threshold pace of 6:00-6:30/mi). I know what you're thinking...if I can run faster shouldn't I?  You don't need to...you simply need to push your lactate threshold.  If you'd like a more in-depth explanation, buy The Art and Science of Running from legendary coach Jack Daniels (or view a clip here). I have found the McMillan Calculator to be an excellent resource to find your target training speeds for different types of workouts.

How many intervals should you do? The Runners World SmartCoach and the Boston Athletic Association program will provide you with specifics (such as doing eight 800-meter repeats with two minutes of recovery in between) and you can probably find a local track on which you can do these workouts. Keep in mind that inserting some hill training into your program will provide you with a lot of the same lactate threshold benefits while also helping you build uphill and downhill leg strength (after all, it's hard to find a race that is completely devoid of hills).

Tempo Runs - These are runs where you string together multiple miles of threshold running without any rest time in between. For example, you might do six miles of tempo sandwiched in between a couple of miles of comparatively slow warm-up and cool-down. Or, you can do a "fast-finish" run where you do 60-70% of the mileage at a slower pace before finishing the remainder at or slightly above your race pace. Almost every training program that I have seen has a weekly tempo workout in it.

Long Runs - A lot of people miss the point of long runs (as I did at first before my training partners did an intervention for me). If you are training to run a 3-hour 26.2-mile marathon, the point of your long run regimen is to eventually train yourself to run for three hours, not 26.2 miles. You don't need to run race-pace during a long run (ideally, you want to be 45-60 seconds per mile slower)! In the vast majority of programs, you will never run more than 21-22 miles before your marathon, but you will have run the duration of your race goal at least once. There is a lot of interesting re-engineering that your body does after you are on your feet for a couple of hours and, until you make yourself run for that period of time, you won't derive those benefits. For example, your body can only store roughly 70-80 minutes of glycogen (sugar stored in your muscles), so running longer than that trains you to efficiently burn fat to keep going. Of course, I will offer a caveat that, unless you are an ultramarathoner, you don't need to do a training run longer than three and a half hours, regardless of how long you expect to take to complete your race.

One essential ingredient of a successful long run is the practice of your hydration/nutrition strategy. Although many of our predecessors endured marathons without eating or drinking much, the modern best practice is to consume calories while you run in order to improve your performance in the last few miles. Teaching your body to digest food while running takes time, so you have to do it during your long runs.

While I tried to keep this explanation very simple, you might still be swimming in information overload. I'll simplify further. First, test yourself. Run a local race or do 12.4 laps on the track to estimate your 5K pace. Then, go to the Runners World SmartCoach and generate a training program for your target race. Next, go to the McMillan Calculator to double-check the pace of your various workouts (I'd trust the McMillan Calculator more than the SmartCoach for this). Last, get fitted for the right shoes at your local running store (don't just buy some based on color preference, have someone analyze your gait and arch) and start your program.

Being able to stick to a long term training program is a transformational lesson in self-discipline and human ability. You will not only become faster, but you will be inspired by the ultimate realization that the more you ask yourself to do, the more you will be able to do.