Horseback riders are familiar with the phenomenon of the horse smelling the barn. As the horse and rider return to within sniffing range of the stable after a long ride, the horse spontaneously increases its pace to get the darn thing over with. Many human runners do something similar. When I took up running at age 12 I completed the same six-mile route every other day, and I always instinctively ran the last part faster, to get the darn thing over with.

Instinctive though it may be, picking up the pace in the last part of a run is not something that runners should do in every workout. That’s because there isn’t anything that runners should do in every workout. Training must be varied from day to day to develop well-rounded fitness. But there is a place in any structured training regimen for progression workouts, which is what coaches call runs in which the last part is run faster than the first.

There are three distinct types of progression run that I like to incorporate into the training plans I design.  Their benefits overlap to some degree, but to a complementary degree, the benefits of each are unique to that specific format.  Let’s take a look at all three.