diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index 4dcad42..994ee28 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [package]
 name = "nova-snark"
-version = "0.11.0"
+version = "0.12.0"
 authors = ["Srinath Setty <srinath@microsoft.com>"]
 edition = "2021"
 description = "Recursive zkSNARKs without trusted setup"
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index acc2bfd..b738c47 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -6,9 +6,9 @@ Recursive SNARKs including Nova have a wide variety of applications such as Roll
 
 This repository provides `nova-snark,` a Rust library implementation of Nova.
 
-To run tests:
+To run tests (we recommend the release mode to drastically shorten run times):
 ```text
-cargo test
+cargo test --release
 ```
 
 ## References