Thursday, March 19, 2009

fartleks.......

My training plan called for 8 miles today, including 4 miles of speedwork (or in my case, slowwork)......I hadn't done any speedwork or intervals for a while, and the workout today kicked my butt.......I got up way early because I knew I needed to get 8 miles in before work....however, I adjusted the training plan a bit and did 7 miles, including 2 miles of speed work and 2 miles of fartleks...

I had never done fartleks before, but my buddy Isaac has suggested them to me a couple times, and he's much faster than me so I decided I'd better listen to him.......Anyway, I ran them in the dark this morning and kind of liked them.....I guess there are different kinds of fartleks, but I just went from telephone pole to telephone pole alternating between running hard, jogging, and walking....if there are other variations of how you do fartleks, I'd love to hear about them......

For some reason I just kept thinking about what a funny word "fartlek" is...how did it get that name anyway?  "fartlek, fartlek, fartlek" kept going through my head....Last night I gave my son a toy called "Dr Fart" that makes farting noises when you press a button....of course he thought it was the best present in the word....anyway, maybe we should invent a Dr Fartlek that does these workouts for you when you press a button...

Taking a rest day tomorrow and then doing between 6-10 on Saturday as the Hooray Spring 6 miler
  

12 comments:

Shannon said...

"I guess there are different kinds of fartleks, but I just went from telephone pole to telephone pole alternating between running hard, jogging, and walking."

This is how I do mine too, would love to hear others on how they do theirs too.

Great job on getting up butt-dark-early to git er done!

Have a great weekend!

Nikemom said...

My youngest does fartleks all the time - they're just not on the track. :D

Missy said...

Huhhuhhuh...you said fart! We will do surprise speedwork with others - someone will randomly 'call it', take off and we gotta chase. Someone will holler - to the telephone pole - we all just chase him.

Unknown said...

LOL. Now that's funny.

IzzyBubbles said...

I haven't done fartleks in awhile, but I like them a little better than your average tempo or speedwork. (slow work in my case, too) Thanks for reminding me - I may throw some in during my next "speed" work session to change things up.

Aron said...

great job getting up early to get the run in!!!

Joe said...

Great job getting up early for the run! I still don't know exactly what a fartlek is (not having done one yet), but I remember reading in a Runner's World issue about one runner trying to remember what the run was called and referring to it as a "butt lick" run!

Mel-2nd Chances said...

hmm, having someone do the speedwork for me! I think you're on to something ;)

I Run for Fun said...

Great speedwork. I'm curious...why do they call it that?

Rookie on the Run said...

I thought the same thing about fartleks. I know my boys will LOVE that word once I get around to doing them. And the Dr. Fart- where did you get that? Gotta get me one of those!

Lisa said...

Dr. Fart must cause quite a lot of giggling :-) The word Fartlek (which apparently means "speed play" in Swedish) always makes me giggle.

I use the telephone pole method myself. The other way I have heard it done is to do it for timed intervals, like 30 seconds or a minute. I have heard this called "strides" as well.

good luck on your run tomorrow.

ShirleyPerly said...

Most of my fartleks lately have been on the bike but could be while running too. Ride/run easy until you see someone else on the roads and try hard to catch them (repeat as many times as you see people). Sprint hard if a big mean dog chases you or someone goes by and says something that pisses you off. For one minute, try to keep up with something that's moving faster than you when it passes you (a car or if running, a roller blader or a cyclist). Hammer hard when you have a hill or downwind section just to see how fast you can go.

My problem, actually, is that I seldom have steady paced rides :-)