Go Run a Fartlek!

One of the wonderful yet intimidating things about social media for me is that I now know what every other runner in the universe is doing and I usually find myself lacking! I also know that most high school track teams have already had call outs and are doing all sorts of training in preparation for spring. Most of the information I've seen recommends some recipe that includes strength training; core work; speed (strides); and aerobic training (miles) over the winter. It can be intimidating! However if I, or you, start simply and then build on your progress, getting better is pretty straightforward. Here are my thoughts. First, you probably already know improving as a runner is generally a consequence of adaptation to stress. The most basic stress is just to run more miles (or more minutes if you're logging time. You are logging your work aren't you?). There are different ways to accomplish this, run longer or more days, for example. If you do nothing more than this, you can expect to get better! The Paavo Method focuses on Consecutive Days (CD) as a cornerstone of their "secret" training method for example. Second, and related to running more miles, if you can stay injury-free, you'll get better! So balancing these first two, running more miles but also staying within an injury-free range of training intensity is crucial to improvement. Cross training; recovery runs; and rest days are all essential to striking this balance. Sounds pretty simple so far; but as Jay Johnson is fond of saying simple ain't easy! Third, do some of your running fast! You can get a lot out of the first two tips, but if you are hungry for more you've got to add the stress of faster running. This is where Fartlek training comes in.

Maybe you already know this term and this kind of running but in case you don't, here goes. " The word 'Fartlek' itself comes from the Swedish for 'Speed Play' and reflects that this training provides for a variety of speeds or paces combining continuous aerobic emphasis training with faster than race pace efforts. True Fartlek allows the athlete to run whatever distances and speeds they wish and to 'play' with varying the intensity, occasionally running at high intensity levels, occasionally at lower intensities. " I got this definition from Peter Thompson's site The New Interval Training in case you're interested in digging deeper into this training.

I'm a fan of fartlek but you have to run it right to get the greatest benefit from it. I know we occasionally run long runs with "two minutes on; three minutes off" for example. This is nothing more than what is called "structured fartlek." On my own runs I've occasionally sprinted between telephone poles as a form of structured fartlek. Unstructured fartlek is perfectly suited to a tough run on the ridge; where your heart rate goes up and down as you run the rolling terrain. The key element with this type of run is that the hard parts have to be hard! By this I mean running faster than race pace; recovering at a slower pace; then going hard again as soon as you feel ready! This distinguishes it from tempo running which is more a steady state run below race pace! (this is hugely simplified I know). Anyway fartlek is that next step you can take over the winter to get better. If you're looking for a simple step beyond the basics, this is it!