tl;dr: nutrition, water, form, shoes and workout advice for getting faster at the 2 mile run and preventing injuries.

There have been a few posts recently asking how to improve a 2 mile run on an APFT. A lot of the advice given is good, but almost all of it is vague and the same canned “do more sprints and don’t suck so much.” I thought I’d give a more detailed look at how someone struggling with a 2 mile APFT run can help themselves.

WHY SHOULD YOU LISTEN TO ME? I have run several half and full marathons, three 50 mile ultramarathons and one 100 miler as well as several half (70.3 miles) and full (140.6 miles) Ironman triathlons. My best 2 mile time is 9:55. I have coached several people up for endurance events as well as Ranger school, which is essentially an endurance event itself.

You can read all or whatever parts of this guide you want. I will farther down literally tell you how fast you may want your sprints to be depending on how fast you are/want to be, but I think everyone can potentially get something out of every part of this. I apologize if some of the advice seems obvious, I’m doing my best to cater to people who literally have no clue.

The first thing you need to understand about running (and fitness in general) is everyone is different. If you hear someone saying THIS is what your form needs to look like and THIS is what you need to eat and drink and THIS is what your workout needs to look like then they’re talking out of their ass. If something is wrong with you (shit hurts or shit’s broke or you’re shit slow) then yeah maybe what you’re doing needs to change. But changing one thing a certain way might help you, and not me. Additionally, big changes all at once will probably do more harm than good and at the very least usually aren’t sustainable. Incremental changes are what you need. Don’t turn your life upside down overnight because of what some random fucker on reddit says.

Nutrition

I’m gonna give you a super hooah quote from Jack Lalanne and then dial it back. "If man made it, don't eat it" and "if it tastes good, spit it out."

Ok. I love me some Ben & Jerry’s and Jameson and Cinnabon as much as everyone else. But if your running is really sucking, looking at what you’re putting in your body is worth doing.

Nutrition is THE thing that varies most between individuals with respect to what works. But in general, limiting junk food will help you feel better and increase your performance. One of the biggest things you can do is start cutting out sugar. Are you one of those dudes that has soda or Gatorade with every meal at the DFAC? Cut that shit out. Go for one of those 0 calorie flavored drinks or even better just milk and water. If you start limiting your sugar eventually all that shit will start to taste poison sweet to you, because it is.

Try sticking to fucking meat. The DFAC usually has chicken breast or some kind of fish. Fucking vegetables. Pasta. Nothing that comes in a wrapper. Your DFAC sucks? No one’s forcing you to go to that one. Find a better one.

Make sure you’re getting at least three meals a day. A monster and a protein bar isn’t breakfast. Budget your time out, and make sure you get to sit down for 30 minutes.

Water

Drink fucking water. Drink some more. Best strategy is to have a water container that you carry around with you. It’ll serve you a lot better than telling yourself you’ll go to the water fountain on the regular. You won’t. I don’t. Before I know it it’s lunch and I haven’t had any. A gallon jug is cool, if you’re working out daily a gallon of water per day is a good goal to have. Take a sharpie and draw time lines from 0700 to 1900 down the side of the jug. I personally love a Nalgene, 4 of them is a gallon.

On average, your body starts hydrating for NOW 12 hours ago. So chugging a bottle of water before a PT test like you’re about to do a UA doesn’t do shit for you. Staying regularly hydrated takes the guesswork out of it.

Running Form

If you can find one, go to a running shoe store. Surest sign it’s a running store and not just a shoe store is they’ll have a treadmill you can use to try out shoes on. Don’t go to Dick’s Sporting Goods. Wear your usual PT shoes there. Ask them for a GAIT ANALYSIS. If they say they don’t do that, or if they charge money for it, go somewhere else. Also ask if they can film you running with your phone. Let the staff know about any issues you’re having. Not so much if you’re slow as shit, more like if something hurts from running. They’ll tell you that you’re fucked up/what you’re doing wrong. They’ll also help you pick shoes but I’ll cover that farther down. They work there because they love running. They’ll help you out, you’re not bothering them by asking questions.

I don’t think I’ve been to a base that didn’t have a running store close by. In case you don’t, I’ll talk a little bit about form here but again what works for me or someone else may not work for you. I say that a lot because it’s true. Anyone who sells you certainty is ripping you off. You should preface everything here with “In general…” or “For many people…”

If you’re hurting anywhere in your feet, shins, legs or hips it might be worth looking at where on your foot you land with each step. You’ve probably heard about heel striking or forefoot striking. You’ve also possibly heard people say that HEEL STRIKING IS ALWAYS BAD and no one should ever do it. This has been pretty well and good debunked, as again everyone is different! Sick of me saying that? Tough tits. You can find videos of elite marathon runners at big marathons who are heel striking. You’re not as fast as they are, so learning something from them couldn’t hurt.

Imagine seeing yourself running from the side, and draw a line straight up from the ground to your eyeballs. Usually, if you’re heel striking your feet are hitting the ground in front of that line. That’s what is usually no bueno, especially for a new runner. At this point, I couldn't care less WHAT PART (heel, forefoot) of your foot is hitting in front of that line, only that it is. Every time your feet land out front like that, two big things are happening. One, you’re stopping yourself a bit. You’re losing forward momentum. You’re not going fasterer. Secondly, a HUGE shock from that stoppage is going up your foot and through your legs. Eventually those shocks will (most commonly) become something super fun called shin splints and then stress fractures.

Moving someone from heel striking to more forefoot striking usually makes it where they lean forward a bit more, and all of a sudden their feet are hitting the ground right ON that line that goes up to their eyes. The important part is you stop having your feet hit waaaaaay the hell out in front of you as your barrel-chested freedom fighter ass hollers out those cadences on Friday morning.

Books could and have been written on running form. I’m not writing a book here. Leaning forward and moving your foot strike back relative to your body is probably the best and biggest change you can make. Do some more research about the POSE method of running, and get that gait analysis even if you have to make a bit of a commute to a running store. It’ll be worth it.

Running shoes

You might have to spend some money that would have gone towards the new Call of Duty. Good running shoes aren’t cheap. I usually end up dropping between $100-$130 a pair. When you go to the running store, they’ll help you chose shoes that suit you. They’ll most likely be different than anything you’ve worn before. That’s ok. ONLY WEAR THEM FOR PT. Don’t wear them out around town. You’re just wearing them down and you’ll have to drop more money sooner.

I won’t even try to tell you which running shoes to buy. You’re not me. I’m personally a Saucony guy, but the staff at that running store will be a much better help than I would, because they just watched you run and they're there with you. At the very least, just make sure you have RUNNING SHOES dedicated to PT. Don’t be that guy rocking Chuck Taylors or basketball shoes. At least, don’t complain about being a shitty runner if you’re wearing those.

A general rule is to replace shoes every 300 miles. In a normal big Army unit, I’d guesstimate you run roughly 8-10 miles a week. At best, that’s a new pair of shoes every 8 months. And you’re still wearing them out on the days you don’t run. Every 6 months is a good rule of thumb for someone in the Army who doesn’t run on their own time. I bet that a lot of you have had your PT shoes for longer than 6 months. If you start running on your own (and you should) that probably cuts down to every 3-4 months. Worn out running shoes are at least as big a culprit when it comes to injuries (shin splints) as bad form is.

Running workouts

Ok, the good stuff. You want to run on your own time, you don’t know how. Cool.

2 miles. The right answer is NOT to go on a bunch of 3 or 5 mile runs. Think about it. Will you ever run as fast, or get as holy hell out of breath running a steady 3 miles as you would on an all-out 2 mile run? Negative ghost rider. You need to do repeats (or sprints).

The common wisdom on r/army is MORE 30-60s AND 60-120s, HOOAH? True, these will help you. But they’re not quantifiable, so you can’t track your individual progress. They’re made for squad or platoon level PT where everyone does the same thing.

Take your goal 2 mile time. If you’re a male failing the 2 mile, 15:00 might be a good starting point. If you’re middle of the pack, maxing it out at 13:00 is probably the next stepping stone. From here on out we’ll talk in 13:00 language. You can do this for any middle distance time and distance goal.

Take 13 minutes and divide it by 8. It comes out to 1 minute and 37 seconds.

Find a flat stretch to run on that is roughly a quarter mile or 400 meters long. If you’re on an Army base, this is the nearest quarter mile track. A 2 mile is 8 laps around this track on the inside lane.

So to get a 13:00 2 mile you need to do 8 laps with each lap taking 1:37.

Knowing it’s only for a quarter mile, start your stopwatch and try one lap where you think 1:37 is. Everyone is different, but I’d say a 7/10 effort, maybe where you’d settle into at the beginning of a company run. Getting into uncomfortable but not all out. Start to dial in what 1:37 for a quarter mile feels like. With more practice you’ll get better at feeling your pace out.

It shouldn’t be awful. After all it’s just one eighth the distance we’re going for. Since a slight safety barrier is good, I would actually move your goal shorter by 3 or 4 seconds, just for shit happens and because you’ll be more tired at the end of a 2 mile than starting it. So for a 13:00 2 mile, maybe use 1:33 as your 400m repeat time.

Keep doing repeats, resting the same amount of time as you’re running. So a 1:33 lap and 1:33 of rest.

At first, do 4 rounds. If you can’t make it 4 rounds without running over the time limit, your goal is too fast and you need to reevaluate. If you’re looking around wondering when the real workout will start, go ahead and do another 4. Go until you start not being able to make the time limit. Keep going up to 12 rounds. If you get to 12 and you’re still coming in in the time limit and you feel like you have more in the tank, you underestimated yourself and you need to reevaluate with a faster 2 mile time.

12x400m repeats is a great workout. After you can make it to 12 you should start decreasing your rest time. 5 and 15 second increments are good, and you can start dealing with normal numbers to make your brain hurt less. So next week do 12x400m @1:30 with 1:15 rest. If at some point you start not making it, at that point give yourself the extra 15 seconds rest back. Start slowly chipping away at that rest time every week. Every other week, maybe take 5 seconds off the time goal. It’ll happen. Keep a journal, so you can see how many repeats you did before taking more rest and you’ll be able to track your progress. As long as you’re getting into that holy hell I can’t breathe state, you’re getting better. I promise.

If it's too hard, you thought you were hot shit and you're not. Dial it back. If it's too easy, you're not setting your sights high enough.

Throwing this workout in along with whatever running you’re doing with your unit will work wonders.

After a month, test yourself with a 2 mile. Ideally it would be great to do it on the same course you usually take the APFT. I highly doubt you will have gotten slower.

I hope this helps some people who have been having issues, and takes the guesswork out of the steps you can take to help yourself. If I didn't know anything, just hearing MORE 60-120s AND DRINK WATER would be very unclear and I don't know that I'd feel very confident randomly going out after work and sprinting my heart out. Any questions, please ask.