For most people, distance running is a chore they perform begrudgingly—an activity that has earned a permanent spot in their fitness routine because they know it is really, really good for them, and not because it brings them any measurable amount of joy.

Reluctant runner, we hear you. And the way we see it, if you’re going to spend time pounding the pavement despite all this unpleasantness, you may as well be fast. Fast things are fun! Race cars. Diamond lanes. Relationships. (Sometimes.) Plus, speed means that your run will be over sooner. We sat down with a few experts to learn how to run faster, why speed training is a good thing for every running style, and how you can do it without ever having to touch a treadmill.

Why should I care about getting faster?

We all know that guy who runs effortlessly around the neighborhood for between 12 and 15 miles on a weekend, and who wraps with some sort of post-jaunt Instagram story about what podcast he listened to in the process. While there’s nothing wrong with being the long runs guy, all those same-distance, steady-speed long runs can get monotonous.

Speed workouts help, says Corinne Fitzgerald, a coach at New York City treadmill studio Mile High Run Club. “They keep things interesting. They’ll elevate your heart rate faster than a long run, allow you to burn a lot of calories in a short amount of time.” Integrating speed work can improve your performance in those longer runs, too, by boosting your oxygen consumption and recruiting fast-twitch muscle fibers to work alongside the slow-twitch fibers on which the body usually relies during endurance activities.

Even a few seconds’ difference can mean a lot. “Shaving any time off your run tells you that you're getting better,” says Kevin St. Fort, a precision running coach and group fitness manager at Equinox. “For you to get faster, you've likely had to get stronger. You’ll have to breathe more efficiently. You'll make improvements in so many areas that what is perceived as a marginal increase in time is, in reality, quite an overall improvement.”