Fartlek Training
5th January 2007
Having done research into Fartlek Training I decided to give it a go. I am in my penultimate week of my eighteen week base building period so the time for guess work is now rather than once my Edinburgh Marathon training starts. Fartlek training is basically random running consisting of sprints, strides and recovery runs, up hills, down hills and flat straights. It works like this; you run along at a pace that feels comfortable and then pick a marker and sprint to it. Once at the marker you then continue running really slowly which is your ‘recovery run’. After you have recovered you may pick another marker and then stride to it and again continue with a recovery run once at your chosen marker. The work out can be as easy or as hard as you choose. That’s the beauty of Fartlek training.
Having had a tough week with the Pyramid speed session and the 10k I did two nights ago I decided not to set a distance for my run or commit to doing ten one hundred meter sprint repeats. I did a steady one mile warm up which led down towards Smalley cross. When I reached the mile marker s stopped to stretch and then looked back up the hill I had just ran down and saw a decorated tree on a front lawn that I set for my first marker. I opened into a stride and when I passed the first lamp post I sprinted until I reached the tree. Once I did I slowed into a recovery run, and boy did I need it. Sprinting up a hill is much harder than running ten miles at a steady pace.
Once over the brow of the brow of the hill and recovered I saw a car which I sprinted to and again once there I slowed to an almost walk to recover, though never stopping completely. I did this the whole mile back and decided that for my first session that two miles would be enough. I could tell after just two miles that I had worked hard. I enjoyed the session, short may it have been but I know that plenty of these style sessions will vastly improve my race day speed and overall performance.
Conditions: Cold, Wet
Time: N/A
“Ideas are funny things. They don’t work unless you do.”
New York City
"Running 26 miles around this place.....I can think of nothing better"
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The Five Boroughs
"There's more to this place than Manhattan"
Staten Island
"Only the first half mile is spent on Staten Island as you immediately leave across the Varrazano-Narrows bridge into Brooklyn"
Brooklyn
"Almost half the race is spent in Brooklyn, where many different neighbourhoods and cultural changes are passed through"
Queens
"The race enters Queens at exactly the half way point by crossing the Pulalski Bridge, over Newton creek, where you get your first amazing view of the City. The next 3 miles are spent here until crossing the challenging Queensboro Bridge over the East river."
Manhattan
"The first of two visits into Manhattan comes at mile 16 as you leave the Queensboro Bridge. Greeted by thousands of screaming spectators makes this one of the most memorable moments of the race, before the 4 mile stretch up First Avenue towards the Bronx"
Bronx
"At mile 20 you cross the Willis Avenue Bridge into the Bronx where little over a mile is run before returning to Manhattan across the Madison Avenue Bridge, where you see the Yankee Stadium, which has to be the highlight of the short trip across the Harlem river"
Manhattan 2
"As you arrive back in Manhattan the course proceeds down Fifth Avenue for 3 miles before entering Central Park for the final push and that moment that will last forever."
Varrazano-Narrows (Staten Island-Brooklyn)
Pulalski Bridge (Brooklyn-Queens)
Queensboro Bridge (Queens-Manhattan)
Willis Avenue Bridge (Manhattan-Bronx)
Madison Avenue Bridge (Bronx-Manhattan)
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