The idea of speed play is Scandanavian. In Swedish, it is called fartlek. The anecdotal history is this: Gosta Holmer, a 1912 and 1920 Olympian was coaching the Swedish cross country and was, well, incensed by their lack of drive. He created a system that calls for self knowledge, focus and the ability to challenge oneself. A fartlek workout can be as gentle as one wants, or as unforgiving as one can handle. I can recall sessions of 4 times 9 minutes hard, with five minutes relaxed, on the roads in rural Pennsylvannia and a gut wrenching session off 40 times 30 seconds on, 1 minute jogging, which I would do about ten days before I did a 10,000m on the track.
Carles Lopes, a 36 year old Portugese athlete, who had taken Olympic silver at 10,000m in 1976, won the LA Olympic marathon in 1984. He was the oldest man to ever the Olympic marathon distance. Photo by Olympics.org
In retrospect, one can get, with a hill session, a fartlek session and a tempo run, in scary fitness. Enjoy the challenges today.
Saturday, June 6, 2020: warm up, Fartlek: 50 minutes, 10 minutes good pace, 15 x 1 minute hard, 1 minute easy, 10 minutes good pace, cooldown.
2020 RunBlogRun Spring Track & Field Training program, in the time of the coronavirus, Week 23, day 6
Monday: warm up, an easy 50 minutes, 6 x 150 m stride outs, cooldown
Tuesday: warm up, 15 minutes easy, tempo run, 20 minutes, at pace 30 seconds above your ave mile pace for 5k now. So, if you ran 18 minutes for 5k, you can run 20 minutes at 6:20 mile pace, this is not to exhaust you, but to build you, 20 minute cooldown,
Wednesday: warm up, an easy 45 minutes, 6 x 150 m stride outs, cooldown
Thursday: warm up, hill workout, 50 minute run, eight two minute hill charges, keep good pace, cooldown
Friday: warm up, an easy 45 minutes, 6 x 150 m stride outs, cooldown
Saturday: warm up, Fartlek: 50 minutes, 10 minutes good pace, 15 x 1 minute hard, 1 minute easy, 10 minutes good pace, cooldown.
Sunday: Long runs, 70-75 minutes
