Change of Pace - Fartlek Intervals

With the thunderstorms rolling through Charlotte late in to Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, the track workout that Megan and I were planning didn’t happen. Instead, my workout shifted to a Fartlek interval workout near my house a little later in the morning.

Our original workout had been a 2000, 1600, 1200, 800, and 400 workout. In its place, I ran 6 minutes, 5 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, and 1 minute.

Fartlek style of training is called “free play”. My guess it derives its meaning from the fact that there is no track involved.

I have used these workouts off and on over the years, but since I often do them solo, I struggle with them.

To make a fartlek workout really effective there needs to be a group of people so they can push one another. Like it or not, peer pressure can make us perform at a level higher than expected.

Unlike a track there is neither a precise starting and ending point nor an elapse time from my watch to give instant feedback to how well my lap was run. Fartlek workouts just don’t give this type of feedback.

Still in a pinch it can and it will suffice.

Because of the distance covered during the workout, my warm up and cool down were shortened to a mile each. The remaining mileage was accumulated from how hard that I ran the intervals and how easy I ran during the recovery phases. By the way, I took “half” recoveries for each one.

I would give the workout a “C+” or maybe a “B-“. I felt good but not great. I will be back to the track next week. "Free play" was nice but I need hard feedback for my running.

 

Sharing one thought at time.

The Cool Down Runner