Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Fartlek Response

That is a really good thing to post Andrew.
The type of fartlek you do really depends on what you are training for. If you are running a shorter race, you want to do really fast bursts with a short time off. Back in high school when we were getting ready for XC Championships, we would do 2 mins on 1 min off, 1 min on 30 secs off, 30 secs on 2 mins off, and repeat that 7 times with a 10 min warm-up and cool-down. The reason for the short bursts and short rests was to have a fast turnover so your legs would get use to the fast pace of a 5k without getting tired.

In longer races, such as a marathon, you want to build your endurance because 26.2 miles is a lot further then 3.1 miles.
Currently I am running these fartleks:

week 1- 8x(3min ON/90sec OFF)
week 2- 6x(4min ON/2min OFF)
week 3- 5x(5min ON/2.5min OFF)
week 4- 4x(6min ON/3min OFF)
week 5- 3x(8min ON/4min OFF)
week 6- 2x(10min ON/4min OFF)
week 7- 3x(8min ON/3min OFF)
week 8- 4x(6min ON/2min OFF)
week 9- 5x(5min ON/1:45 OFF)
week 10- 6x(4min ON/90sec OFF)
week 11- 7x(3min ON/90sec OFF)
week 12- 8x(2min ON/2min OFF)


I hope this helps and answers some questions people may have.

now get out there and go run!!

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