Most people trying to run faster do the same thing: run more.

More miles, more days, more suffering on the road. And for most people — especially military folks grinding through PFT prep — it barely moves the needle.

I know because I did it for years. Logged miles four to five days a week in the traditional long slow distance grind and improved my USMC PFT 3-mile time by a grand total of thirty seconds over several years. Thirty. Seconds.

Then I stopped running so much — and got dramatically faster. Here’s what actually changed.

The Problem With Running More Miles

When I was prepping for Officer Candidates School back before 9/11, I had a 24:00 3-mile time and zero shot at an officer contract with that number. So I did what made sense: I ran more. Built up to four or five days a week, logged the miles, showed up to OCS with a 21-minute 3-mile.

Fine. But over the next several years of the same training approach — traditional gym work plus long slow distance runs — I got my time down to 20:32. That’s it.

“I’m just not a runner,” I told myself. The guys going sub-18 were just built different.

Turns out, the problem wasn’t my genetics. It was my training method.

What Changed Everything: Mechanics First, Then Intervals

In 2009 I went deep into CrossFit and basically stopped running. Counterintuitively, I also stopped stressing about my 3-mile time.

Then I got introduced to two things that changed how I thought about running entirely:

POSE running — a technique-first approach that treats running as a skill with learnable mechanics, not just a matter of how much you grind.

CrossFit Endurance — an approach to endurance training that argued you could get faster at long distances by training with shorter, higher-intensity intervals instead of logging endless slow miles.

Both of these ideas were basically the opposite of conventional wisdom. I was skeptical. But I had nothing to lose, so I ran a 3-mile baseline — 21:37, not bad for someone who’d barely been running — and then spent six weeks doing nothing but running mechanics drills in my warm-ups.

No extra running. Just skill work.

Six weeks later I ran 20:23. My fastest 3-mile ever — just from improving mechanics.

That was enough. I was convinced. Time to add the intervals.

The Interval Protocol That Took Me to 17:55

For the next six weeks, I ran two interval sessions per week:

• Tuesday: Short intervals — 10x100m, 30s on/30s off, 4x400m, variations like that
• Thursday: Long intervals — 3x800m, 2x1 mile, 7:00 on/4:00 off, that range

That’s it. No tempo runs, no time trials, no long slow distance. Just my normal daily strength and conditioning work plus two interval sessions a week.

At the end of those six weeks I ran 19:21.

I kept going with the same approach. When PFT day came, I knocked out 20 pull-ups and 100 crunches, then stepped to the start line for the 3-mile. Felt good through the turnaround, started picking it up in the second half, really opened it up in the final stretch.

17:55. First 300 PFT.

And here is the part that matters for you: I did that while deadlifting 2.5x bodyweight, squatting just over 2x bodyweight, hitting 26-28 strict pull-ups, and maintaining competitive CrossFit benchmarks. I did not sacrifice strength to get faster. I got stronger and faster at the same time by training smarter — not by running more.

The guys who went back to their traditional pull-up, sit-up, 3-mile grind? I beat most of them.

Why This Works (The Short Version)

Running more miles improves your aerobic base up to a point — then you hit diminishing returns fast. You’re adding training stress, beating up your legs, and extending recovery time without getting proportionally faster. For a deeper look at why more volume stops working, check out how the Pareto Principle applies to training.

High-intensity intervals attack your aerobic power — your ability to produce energy fast — which is what actually makes you faster over distance. You also spend far less time running, which means less wear on your body and more capacity left for strength training.

The mechanics piece matters just as much. Inefficient running form is like driving with the parking brake on. You can push harder and still go slower than someone who moves cleanly. Fix the mechanics, and your fitness translates directly into speed.

If you want to go deeper on running alongside your strength work without one sabotaging the other, this post covers the research: Is it Possible to Be Strong and Fast?

How to Apply This Starting Now

You do not need a fancy program to get started. Here is the basic framework:

Two interval sessions per week. Keep your normal training. Add:

• One short interval session (100m–400m efforts, full recovery between)
• One long interval session (800m–1 mile efforts, longer recovery)

Fix your mechanics first. If you have never worked on running form, spend two to four weeks on drills before you start hammering intervals. Efficient mechanics make every rep count more.

Stop the long slow distance grind. An occasional longer run is fine — useful for gear testing, pacing practice, and mental toughness. But it should not be the foundation of your run training if getting faster is the goal.

If you want the full system — mechanics, interval structure, and sample workouts — laid out step by step, the Free 5-Part Endurance Mini-Course walks you through exactly how to get faster without logging a ton of miles.

Running injuries slowing you down? The two most common issues that come up when people start running harder are shin splints and plantar fasciitis. Both are fixable — hit those links to learn what to do about each.

Keep Training Smart

If you want to improve your aerobic conditioning without all the long slow miles, the showdown between traditional cardio and high-intensity intervals is worth a read.

And if you’re currently grinding through PFT prep or just want a structured daily program that handles the programming so you don’t have to, the Strategic Foundations Training Team is built exactly for that.