Try Fartlek for Fun Speed Work.

What is it?
Benefits
Where to train
How does it work?

Photo courtesy of Mike Baird

Have Fun
Solo or Together
Extend Your Efforts
Some Examples

What is it?

With fartlek training you include a number of bursts of speed into your continuous run. Run how your feel, changing the distance or time of the efforts as you go. It's a playful way to build your speed, strength and endurance.


Benefits

Anyone can include this speed training into their workouts. As a beginner it's an excellent way to introduce yourself to working harder. More experienced runners can use it when they're coming back from injury or easing into speed after building a base or time off from racing. It's less demanding than a track workout and running laps can sometimes drive you crazy.

Where to train

You can run this session on your usual training course of trails, fields or roads. You'll be running between 40 to 60 minutes (total) depending on your fitness and schedule. Keep to a fairly flat or gently rolling course to begin with. As you get fitter you can include some hills.

How does it work?

• You'll start with some warm up exercises and 10 to 15 minutes of easy running (covering one to two miles).
• Then do pickups of anywhere between 30 seconds to 3 minutes. The idea is to increase your speed and work at 60 to 80% of your maximum effort.
• Run how you feel and remember to pace yourself.
• Aim for at least 6 to 8 pickups.
• After each pickup run easy for one to three minutes to recover.
• Think about floating between each one.
• As you get fitter and faster you'll find your pace between pickups will increase and you may shorten the recovery.
• Practice running with good form during the pickups.
• Finish with a cool down of 10 to 15 minutes of easy running (covering one to two miles).

Fartlek is speed play so have some fun with your training. Instead of using your watch to time the pickups, run hard to the next street light, tree or fence. Use your surroundings to change the distance of the pickups.

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Solo or Together

You can run by yourself and make your usual training run more interesting. It's fun to do these runs with your friends. You might take it in turns choosing landmarks or how long to run. If some in the group are faster they run back to rejoin the others during the recovery. Then everyone starts the next pickup together.

Extend Your Efforts

As an experienced runner you can include pickups of between 10 to 20 in your fartlek session. Increase the speed and distance of the pickups to make the session harder. Remember to take enough rest between each one. Running too tired with poor form can increase your chance of injury.

Include hills to add some resistance training to your fartlek. Working the hills will make you stronger. It'll give you confidence for attacking hills during a race. Practice good form on the down hills. Flow down the hills without braking.

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8 pickups of:
2 minutes hard followed by 1 minute of easy recovery running

5 pickups of:
3 minutes hard followed by 2 minutes of easy recovery running

20 pickups of:
40 seconds hard followed by 20 seconds of easy recovery running

Remember to cool down with 10 minutes of easy running. Followed by stretching.

My favorite session

This one really gets your legs moving. It's called "Mona Fartlek" after Steve Monegehetti, a champion Australian marathoner who included this in his training.

Start with 10 minutes of easy running then do:

Two pickups of:
90 seconds hard followed by 90 seconds of easy recovery running
Four pickups of:
60 seconds hard followed by 60 seconds of easy recovery running
30 seconds hard followed by 30 seconds of easy recovery running
15 seconds hard followed by 15 seconds of easy recovery running

Finish with an easy 10 minutes of running.

You can build strength and speed with fartlek without the pressure of a formal session. Speed training can be stressful when you record the exact distance of your repeats all the time. Give yourself a break from this routine. Running fast and free is a marvelous feeling.

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