WHY SPEED SESSIONS ARE THE SECRET WEAPON IN YOUR RUNNING TRAINING 

Published: 02/09/2026

There's a reason every serious training block has a day circled in red for speed. The long run builds the engine. The easy miles keep the wheels turning. But the fast stuff? That's where you find out what the machine can actually do.  

Run the same steady pace week after week and, sure, you'll get good at running that pace. But comfort has its limits. If you want a PB, you've got to occasionally ask your legs a slightly ruder question. Speedwork forces your body to adapt. It brings more muscle fibres into the party, sharpens your mechanics when things start moving quickly and teaches you to use oxygen more efficiently. More importantly, it gives you another gear. The kind you'll be very glad you've got when the final few kilometres start asking some serious questions. 

And it's not all about what's happening from the neck down. Speed sessions are where you build a bit of mental armour, too. Learning to stay relaxed when your legs are working hard is basically race-day rehearsal. The effort gets uncomfortable, your brain starts suggesting that maybe you've done enough, and you learn to keep your head while your body gets on with it. That was the thinking behind the first Nike After Dark Tour training session, led by Courtnay Walker and Intisar Abdul-Kader. 

With the London 10K on the horizon, the mission was simple: find your pace. This wasn't about smashing a threshold session or hunting down your VO2 max. It was about getting runners acquainted with their 10K pace. Finding that sweet spot where you're working, but not falling apart. Settling into a rhythm that feels controlled, sustainable and, crucially, familiar. Because come race day, six miles is a long way to be wondering what your pace should feel like Better to find out now.

Here's how the session went. 

WARM-UP 

First things first, get the body switched on. 

• Dynamic mobility to open everything up. 

• A 400m jog to ease into the session. 

• Running drills including heel toe walk, ankle lift, shin lift, knee lift, standing march, A-skips and high knees. All the good stuff for sharpening mechanics and coordination. 

• Pogo jumps and unilateral hops. Three rounds at 70%, 80% and 90% effort, 20 seconds per round, building towards quick, efficient ground contact. 

• Fast feet, using the same effort and timing as the pogo jumps. Quick turnover, light steps, tall posture. Think less frantic washing machine, more smooth operator. 

It’s easy to look at all that and think the real session starts when the 400s do. It doesn’t. As Intisar put it: “Heels pay the bills but jumps and plyers pay dividends, remember that.” In other words, the boring-looking bits are doing some serious work. The drills, jumps and plyometrics get the legs ready to produce force quickly and efficiently before you start asking them to do it 10 times in a row. 

MAIN SET 

10 x 400m at 10K pace 

The goal: practise race pace and running economy. 

The slowest pace group ran eight reps rather than 10. 

90 seconds recovery between reps. Nothing fancy – just 400m, recover, go again. And that's precisely why it works. 

You're not trying to win the session on rep one. You're trying to make every rep look and feel like the one before it. Find the pace, settle into it, stay relaxed and let the rhythm do the work. That consistency is the skill. 

Because when you're six kilometres into a 10K and your legs are starting to complain, you don't want to be discovering your race pace for the first time. You want it to feel familiar. 

COOL DOWN 

One to two laps, depending on time and energy. Then go home, eat something decent and let the legs know they’re appreciated. 

WHY IT MATTERS 

Speed sessions train a different side of the running equation. They teach you to move quickly without wasting energy. They give you the confidence to change gears. And they get you comfortable with the feeling of working hard while still staying in control. 

That extra gear can come in handy pretty much anywhere in a race. Getting yourself out of trouble at the start. Responding when someone throws in a mid-race surge. Closing down the final kilometre. Finding a little bit more when your legs have already told you there isn’t any more. There usually is. 

That’s the point of this kind of work. You’re not just becoming fitter. You’re becoming a more versatile runner. Someone who can shift gears, find rhythm and understand what different paces actually feel like. By race day, pace stops being a number staring back at you from your watch. It becomes something you know. And something you trust. 

A FEW THINGS TO REMEMBER 

Don't bin the plyos. Pogo jumps, unilateral hops and fast feet might look like the supporting cast next to 10 x 400m, but they're doing plenty of heavy lifting. Build through 70%, 80% and 90% rather than launching yourself into orbit on round one. The aim is to prime the legs, not empty them. 

The 90 seconds counts. It's recovery, but it's still part of the session. Take enough time to get your breathing under control without completely switching off. You want to go into the next rep ready, not refreshed like you've just had a Sunday roast. 

Quality over quantity. If eight reps means you can actually hit the right pace, eight reps is the session. There's no prize for dragging yourself through 10 ugly ones. The goal is to practise good running, not collect intervals. 

Don't get carried away early. The first 400m should feel controlled. The fourth or fifth is where you'll find out whether you got that right. Start too hot and the session can unravel quickly. Hold something back, find your rhythm and aim to make the reps feel remarkably similar. 

Recover properly. Short reps don't make this an easy session. It's still high intensity, so give yourself a day or two before your next hard effort. The adaptation happens when you recover from the work, not when you're busy pretending you're invincible. 

Speedwork isn't about turning every run into a race. It's about knowing you've got another gear when you need it. And that's where the After Dark Tour earns its name. Long after the sun's gone down, this is the graft that turns steady runners into confident racers. No magic tricks. No shortcuts. Just good people, good running and a whole lot of controlled laps.