The Knighton Runs Podcast · Chris Knighton

73 | How Fast to Run Each Day (Marathon Training)

·25 min·1 clip

A 40-mile week can make the long run 16 to 20 miles.

Coach Chris Knighton opens by asking what runners think they need to do to get faster. Most people jump straight to more mileage and more intensity, and he does not pretend those do nothing. His point is that they are only part of the picture. The other big lever is variety. He keeps coming back to the mistake of running everyday miles too fast. That does not mean everything should be slow forever, and it does not mean slow running alone makes anyone faster. It means training has to serve different purposes. Easy running has one job. Speed work has another. Tempo work has another. The long run has another. He then walks through what tempo can look like. Mile repeats are one option. Three by one mile is another. A three-mile steady effort a little faster than marathon pace is another. More advanced runners may stretch that into something like three times two miles at half marathon pace. The focus stays on effort, with tempo work sitting around 70 percent and helping race pace feel more manageable later. He says tempo pace is generally around half marathon pace for most runners and quite a bit faster than marathon pace. That keeps tying back to race day, because the goal is not just to work hard now but to make marathon pace and half marathon pace feel less demanding later. He then turns to the weekly structure. Friday becomes an off day in a five-day running week. He notes that a more advanced runner could make that a recovery run instead if six days of running makes more sense. Saturday is placed as the long run. He says that is usually the hardest run for half marathoners and marathoners, even if it is not always the fastest one. It is often the most physically demanding workout of the week. That placement matters because it creates more room between the other hard sessions. The speed workout and the tempo workout only get one day of recovery before the next hard run. The long run, by contrast, gets two days of rest or recovery before Tuesday comes back around. The whole setup is meant to keep the week from turning into one long grind. He keeps returning to the same idea from different angles. Run enough. Vary the work. Do not make every day feel the same. That, for him, is the cleaner road to running faster without flattening the week.

As heard by us

Volume and varied training, rather than constant hard effort, are presented as the route to faster running.

The episode frames speed as something built through smarter training, not just harder effort. Coach Chris Knighton points to volume and variety as the main controllable levers, and the conversation keeps returning to the idea that everyday runs should not all sit at the same…

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Why you'd press play

You want a weekly training rhythm that gets you faster without turning easy days into another hard workout.

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