Thursday, March 24, 2011

Well That Blew!

Yesterday blew.  Literally.  A line of rough thunder storms passed over the Appalachians last evening (who says "last evening", really!?), knocking out our power for a few hours, throwing trees all over the roads, and producing golf ball sized hail in the southern parts of the state (none near us, however).  I was just getting started on dinner when the power went out -what to do?

Go to Applebee's, and drink beer.  Luckily my wife got home soon after the power went out so that she could grab a shower before the water heater tank got cold.  We got back around 9, and our power was on.  5,000 people here still don't have theirs back yet though - why couldn't my office building be one of them?

This morning was chilly compared to the past few days.  I was starting to get used to running in 60 degree weather this week, and today it was 45.  Tuesday went really well, I did a hard 4 mile tempo run and had no difficulty hitting my target (around a 7:15 pace).  Today was supposed to be 1.5 mile tempo repeats.  It didn't go well.  After the warm up, my legs had no zap.  So today became a fartlek run, and I need to adjust my schedule to a Monday-Thursday setup for my hard runs to give me more time to recover.  I'm starting to feel race day creeping up again, and I don't want my progress to stall because of poor scheduling. 

This week has been kind of a beat down at work, I'm hoping to get something interesting going on soon to blog about.  Till then, you have to deal with posts like this.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Could Someone Get Me a Pillow Please?

I am very tired.  I'd love nothing more to go close my office door, take the phone off the hook, and sleep until lunch while the world outside thinks I'm "taking a phone call".

Saturday was a banner day.  I got up and ran 10 miles, my longest long run of the year.  I plan to hang at about 10 miles until early summer, since 10 is enough when training for 5k races.  I was still a bit sore from lifting on Thursday (squats, dead lift, leg presses).  Then I caught up on some stuff around the house (damn dishes will be my undoing!).  I hit the road about 2:30, headed for my parents house to help out with some stuff around their farm and hang out with my brother.  As previously mentioned, my old college roommate, Jim Miller, is a UFC fighter, so we were planning to go to Applebee's to watch his fight.

But before that could happen, my parents needed some help with some roofing, and some work on the chicken coops, and some feed unloaded.  My brother tore ligaments in his ankle earlier in the year, so his foot is in a cast and he's been benched for the first half of the year.  Good thing I only live 2 hours away (yay, lucky me...).  I busted my ass for about 4 hours (even though I'd already put in 10 miles that morning), and we got out the door just barely quick enough to make the prelim fights.  It was a good event overall, the food was as good as Applebee's food can be, and the beer was cold.  Somewhere along the line I've forgotten what it feels like to stay up late, and getting to bed at 1:30 doesn't sit too well with me.

Sunday, up at 7:30 to finish the last of the roofing work and a few other random tasks (one of which will get an entire paragraph in a minute), and eat a plate of breakfast that was absolutely unholy in size (4 hash browns, 5 scrambled eggs, 5 slices of bacon, and 2 big biscuits).  I didn't get back on the road until 11, and once I did make it home I was too tired to actually accomplish anything else.

The aforementioned ridiculous random task can only be described as "shoveling pumpkin pie".  Mom had gotten her hands on around a dozen or so leftover pumpkins after Halloween, with the intention of busting them up to feed to her chickens through the winter so that they'd get something besides the usual corn.  They were sitting on a pile of hay in an old storage shed, and about 8 of them hadn't been touched since being put there.  When the weather is cool, and they're kept out of the sun, I guess pumpkins can last a long time.  But we've had several warm stretches so far this year, and several very wet stretches.  The pumpkins had gone from round to kind of squished down ovals, with no hope of being picked up by hand.  They really were like pumpkin pie surrounded by soft vegetable skin.  So I had no choice but to shovel them into a wheelbarrow with a coal shovel.  So if anyone ever asks you, "What do you know about West Virginia, what is it like?", you can tell them that it is a beautiful and scenic place where we shovel pumpkins for chickens.

I'm glad today was an easy run, because tomorrow will be a 4 mile tempo run, and I need at least another solid night of sleep before I can try to tackle that.  Overall, it was a pretty good weekend - my buddy won his fight, my Hokies lost their game (out of the NIT in the second round), I enjoyed some food, family, and friends, and to top it all off, I shoveled some pumpkins.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Finally Friday

Man this week has seemed to go on forever.  I even took Monday off and it has felt long.  Now I'm trying to cram in some miles before it's over since I had several rest days from running to recharge.  This is just a quick post, since I've been busier than usual at work this week, and I don't really fancy sitting at the computer at home when the weather is so nice (60's yesterday and probably all weekend!).  Maybe spring is finally here?

Daylight savings time has taken a toll on me.  I can't get my sleep schedule adjusted, and it's pitch black when I get up to run in the morning.

I'm hoping to get in a 10 mile run tomorrow morning to offset an evening out with my brother.  My old college roommate is a UFC fighter, and we're going to a bar to watch his fight, have some drinks, and see some other friends of ours who are still in college but home for spring break.

You may not hear any more from me until Monday.  Which won't be much different than most weekends.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Part 6: Warm Up, Cool Down, Stretching, Racing, Closing Thoughts

Warning, long post (that's what she said).  I'm trying to cram it all in right here at the end (also what she said).

Before You Run

Here's another one of those places where lots of information gets tossed around, but very little actual research backs any of it up.  Always stretch before you run (it keeps you from getting hurt).  Never stretch a cold muscle (you'll develop micro tears).  Always warm up and stretch (full range of motion allows for more relaxed running).  Warm up but never stretch (static stretches destabilize your muscles).  What's a runner to do?

While there is research out there, few people read it, and fewer actually believe/follow it.  Most simply go on doing what they've always done - this is how I do it, it hasn't caused me any problems so far, why change?  Well it turns out, at least according to the latest research, that this is exactly correct.  The latest studies have shown no positive correlation between stretching or not stretching and injury prevention.  What they did find, however, is a higher incidence of injury among runners who suddenly started or stopped stretching as part of their warm up.  Most experts (by "most", I mean all that I've ever read) that a low intensity warm up before activity is beneficial.  It turns out that the rest doesn't matter, as long as you're consistent, and you take it slowly if you decide to make changes.

So what is a low intensity warm up?  To warm up for any activity, you should do that activity - but slower and gentler.  Your warm up really is about warming up - increasing your body temperature makes your blood and other fluids runnier (see what I did there, using that word?), easier for your body to move around.  It bumps your heart rate up to something between resting and working out, so that there is less of a jolt to all of the systems which rely on your heart (which would be all of them) when you start the actual run.  It gets you moving before you actually run, so you can asses any little aches and pains and try to figure out where they came from.


The warm up is a great example of how everyone who runs is different.  Just like a training schedule, what works best for one person doesn't for another.  Some people need long warm up.  Some need additional drills to help with their running form.  Some want a combination of fast and slow running as part of their warm up.  I personally like about a mile jog as a warm up, with 3 or 4 sections of about 50 or 60 yards at around race pace performed late in the mile.  The best way to determine what you need is to experiment - start with a long warm up, and systematically change things until you find what works best for you.

Racing

You've done all of the hard work, now the reward, the fun stuff, racing.  How does one go about this?  Some of it is obvious - get a good night's sleep, pack your bag the night before, plan way ahead, time your eating and drinking to correspond with what your body needs.  But some of it requires experience and judgment.  You're in shape to run X pace, should you start out at that pace, a little faster/slower, go out hard to get a good spot, go slow to avoid the early rabbits...?

I wish I could tell you to always run your race, ignoring what everyone else is doing.  The fastest races are run by an even pace the whole way - but things happen.  You get nervous, or you get boxed in, you feel better or worse during certain miles, etc.  Sometimes you want to run on your own, sometimes it is easier to run on someone else's shoulder.  The point to all of this is that you shouldn't go into a race with a plan - you should go in with 2 or 3 plans, and be prepared to scrap them all if the need arises.  Try to run your pace, but at regular intervals, evaluate how things are going.  How are you feeling?  Are you on pace, fast, or slow?  In contention to maybe get an award at the end?  After each evaluation, decide whether to stick to your guns, or try something else.  This is how I approach the first 95% of the race.  It takes experience to be good at the racing part of running.

The last 5% of the race is the kick.  That mad sprint to burn off all you have left, hopefully grabbing a few spots along the way and sneaking a few extra seconds off the clock.  How does one do this?  With guts, and with confidence.  You can do speed work to make sure you're fast.  You can condition hard to be in great shape.  None of that matters if you don't know in your heart that you can press forward, and have the strength and guts to do so.  Make Usain Bolt run 4900m with me, and we'll see who can run 100m faster.

Now you're done, walking towards a water station after crossing the line.  How did you do?  It doesn't matter right now, that's how you did.  The time to evaluate a race isn't right after it, when you're exhausted, out of balance, struggling just to stay on your feet.  Always give it a day, step back from the actual run before making judgments about the results.  Like anything else in life, treat failure to reach your goals as an opportunity to learn and grow, and success as a step towards something bigger (and of course, a reason to grab a beer and celebrate).

Winding Down

Back to our scenario - post run, you're exhausted, full of one or more emotions that are likely at an unreasonable level, you're resisting the urge to compare your time to your target time.  Or, you've just finished a grueling workout, you're tired, stinky, hungry and thirsty, what should you be doing?  More running, that's what.  Your cool down is almost as important as your warm up.  It allows your heart to slow down over a longer time period - giving your blood flow more time to remove wastes from your muscles (aided by the contractions of the muscles themselves).  By now you should notice a pattern here:  everything should be gradual, even things as simple as starting and stopping a run.

After your run is a great time to stretch.  Besides just feeling good, it helps with your cool down by aiding blood flow, and is a good opportunity to work on your flexibility since the muscles are already warmed up.

Sometime within the first half hour after a race or hard workout, you need to eat something.  It should have a combination of complex and simple carbs, as well as protein, so that your body can begin the process of recovery.  Several studies have pointed to low-fat chocolate milk as a recovery drink, since it has what you need.  If the thought of drinking milk after running in the summer sun turns your stomach sour, a sports drink and half peanut butter sandwich would do nicely as well. 

Closing Thoughts

The first thing that comes to mind is, thank you God that this is over.  I really expected that I'd have a better time preaching my running philosophy and detailing the minutiae of the different workouts I believe in.  And while this started out great, I feel like it took a turn for the boring real effing quick.

I'll sum things up with two statements.  The first is that my philosophy of running and training is essentially a holistic approach that mixes and matches different workouts to improve the individual parts of the whole.  Everything in your body is connected, so while the workouts I've discussed seem very specific in their intent, the cumulative effect makes the program work for improvement.  A complete program makes a complete runner.

The second statement speaks to my knowledge and intent.  Most of what I've learned as a runner comes from experience, experimentation, and a very healthy helping of reading.  I absolutely won't recommend anything I haven't personally tried.  I may not always understand everything behind the scenes of what I'm doing, and I may not even agree entirely with some of the information I give.  But before I tell anyone anything, I evaluate the potential that my advice could have for getting someone hurt, and I always err on the side of safety, even if it means holding something back that could potentially make someone a better runner until it is better understood.  Like a doctor, I endeavor to do no harm.



There you have it, my training philosophy (more or less).  Anything I've missed will hopefully come up in my future posts about my running.  On the training front, I managed my weekend long run (another 8 miles) for the 3rd straight weekend.  Now that I'm in the rhythm for this, I feel much more "on track" with my training.  I took the past 3 days off as a little mini-recharge, to give my legs a full break before heading into my next tempo phase next week.  With about 6 weeks to go, I am feeling much more confident about how much I can accomplish before my first race of the year.  Take it easy (again, that is what she said).

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Part 5: Interval Running and "Speed" Work

What's in a Name

So many people will tell you they're going to do some speed work, then go on to describe an interval workout.  I think I'm learning not to begrudge people the little shorthand means that they use to describe their running, even if their mislabeling is misleading.  When I discuss these topics, I will reserve the term "speed work" for workouts that focus on raw speed - how fast you can go at your absolute top speed, full-out sprinting.  Interval workouts are not speed workouts for me.

Interval Running

So what are intervals?  Intervals are repeated efforts at faster than race pace, with some sort of rest between.  The objective of interval work is to repeatedly exceed the anaerobic threshold, allowing your body to recover enough between each effort so that you can put in a substantial distance at a faster pace than you could running continuously.  During each interval, metabolic waste will accumulate faster than your body can eliminate it - if you just kept going, your body would force you to slow down.  Then you back off during the recovery period, allowing your body to catch up on the waste removal.  This teaches your body to deal with high levels of wastes more efficiently, and conditions the muscle cells to operate for longer periods of time anaerobically.  What does this mean to you and your running?  It means the ability to run at a faster pace than before, for longer.

As I said in Part 4, I do these in blocks, just like my tempo runs.  They are an intense workout, and you can only do them a couple of times per week at most - may people will only do one workout like this per week.  A person can only sustain the work load of intervals for a month or two at most before they need to switch things up.

The bread and butter interval workout for middle-to-long distance runners are 400m repeats (1/4 mile repeats).  The mistake that many runners (especially our misguided high school cross country athletes) make is to set a pace for interval workouts that is absolute murder.  They try to give their best 400m on ever rep, and so their times steadily get slower as the workout progresses, or they have to do a shorter, less effective workout.  I prefer to do intervals at a pace which is 20-30 seconds/mile faster than race pace - really anywhere from 5-10 seconds per 1/4 mile faster than my 5k pace works for me.  While it is uncomfortably fast, the discomfort only lasts for a few minutes, and it isn't so fast that I burn out early in the workout - I like to do 10-15 intervals for a workout, anything less feels lazy, anything more is just ridiculous, even when training for longer races.  I used to hate intervals, because we always did them too fast, and our recovery was too stationary, making my legs feel heavy at the start of the next interval.  My recovery is a combined walk/jog for 200m, always trying to jog the last 20 or 30 seconds of it to loosen my legs back out.  My recovery goal is to get my heart rate back down to 140 beats per minute, which takes about 90 seconds or so for me.  When I'm in good shape, I like to hit this workout twice a week, when I'm just getting back into things, I only do one hard workout per week.  While they may sound tailored more to shorter distances, intervals benefit marathoners too.  There will always be times when your body needs to sneak past the anaerobic threshold, even for a short distance like climbing a hill.  Spending a little time working on your body's ability to efficiently deal with this makes those efforts easier to recover from during the big race.


Speed Work

Speed, you're either blessed with it or you aren't, right?  Well yes and no.  While your genetics do play a huge part, it is probably unlikely that many of us are at our full potential when it comes to sprinting.  And it doesn't matter greatly to us longer runners - the kick is only the last 2% of a 5k, right?  Which is why I really only give speed work about 2% of my time.  If you can force yourself to sprint at the end of your race with no thought to the consequences (mainly, how it is going to feel when you cross the line), you'll probably out kick most people anyway.

Speed work requires much high intensity effort.  Sprinting is almost entirely anaerobic, and is more about strength and explosiveness than conditioning your muscle cells to do certain things.  I might do one or two speed workouts all year - some 100m repeats, with long recovery between maybe.  Good enough.


My own interval work continues to go well.  I didn't want to run today, but forced myself to, and ended up with a pretty good workout.  My heart rate is still recovering quickly, and my legs are dealing with the intervals better each time.  This tells me that next week I'll be doing longer interval workouts (probably 15x400m), and then it's on to a tempo block.  I mention this just to highlight the importance of listening to your body and your results, and using what they tell you to adapt your schedule so that you get the most out of it.  And your life won't be complete unless you hear about the sandwich that I just ate for lunch - peanut butter with chocolate and caramel syrup and marshmallows.  The 2nd best sandwich I've ever eaten (I'll leave you writhing in suspense about my favorite until a later date when I need something to post about).

I also wanted to highlight this week's edition of Running with the Kenyans (the index of articles can be found here, with a new post each Tuesday).  They call the workout they are doing a fartlek, but the rigid schedule, the length of the hard runs, and the shortness of the easy recoveries, this all screams INTERVAL to me.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Part 4 : Tempo Running

Hello and welcome back to this series on training that feels like it is never going to end.  What is this, post 47, 48, something like that?

"Race Pace"

Before I go into the nuts and bolts of the more intense workouts, I need to give clear guidance on a bit of terminology I use.  I will often reference "race pace" when trying to describe the effort level needed for a workout.  When I say this, what I mean is the best possible pace you can run based on your conditioning on that day, as if you had run the same pace throughout the entire race.  That means "5k race pace" refers to the fastest pace that you can hold for for 3.1 miles, so that any faster you'd be forced to slow down sometime during the race, and any slower would leave you with too much gas in the tank at the finish.  Unless I specify otherwise, I'm typically talking about pace/mile.  For anything 10k or shorter, you train based on the race distance.  For longer, I'd say use either your half marathon pace as a reference, or a pace that you can hold for 1 hour.  I will often use race pace and lactic/anaerobic threshold pace interchangeably, since a good way to have a great race is to train so that you run right at or just below the threshold the whole way.

Tempo Running

Tempo runs are long, sustained efforts.  Typically, they are performed at slower than race pace, over a longer distance/time.  They are incredibly useful, and are found in one form or another in almost all training philosophies.  Running at a sub-maximal effort (statements like that make me sound more authoritative) allows your body to clear out the metabolic wastes slightly faster than they can accumulate.  Your cells get accustomed to high levels of waste, they adapt to more efficiently remove it.  While you may be running slower than you race, you are simulating race conditions within your body.  At the whole body level, you should be feeling the burn.  Your breathing is increased, the pace is fast, but not unbearable, and certainly not as intense as racing.  Tempo runs are a next logical step in training after you have your base mileage built and find that you are prepared to move into the meat and potatoes of a training program.

Useful Workouts

For 5k training, I typically use two types of tempo workouts.  One is a 4 or 5 mile run at around 45 seconds/mile slower than race pace.  The other is 2x2 miles at 20-30 seconds faster than race pace, with around 5 minutes break between each effort.  The second workout really allows you to test your conditioning at close to race pace, and if it's been a while, helps you get used to the discomfort of racing.  For the marathon, I did an 8-10 mile tempo run once every week or every other week at about 30 seconds/mile faster than my planned marathon pace, since I didn't have a reliable race pace to work with, and it worked out pretty well.

Once I hit this part of training, I like to work in 3-6 week blocks.  I'll do a block where my intense workouts are tempo runs to condition myself to race pace running, then a block of interval work (stay tuned for Part 5!) to improve my race pace, then back to interval work to get acclimated to the new pace.


And right now, I'm in an interval block.  My workouts are going well, I'm doing 1/4 mile intervals at around a 6:30/mile pace, which is right where I want to be in March.  Another week or so, and I'll go back into a short tempo block before I begin the final push for a May race.  And in other news, there probably won't be any pictures of my "home gym" (various second hand workout items in the garage) posted as promised in my early posts, because my wife and I have joined the YMCA.  Pool access, better equipment, and a way for my wife to do fitness activities that she enjoys all make this the smart decision.  Did I mention the pool access?  I just have to continue to remind myself in the weight room that I am a runner, not a linebacker, because my muscles have been sore pretty much since I started  lifting again this year.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Out on the Road Today...

This morning I hop in the Camry and start out the ridge.  It's overcast, but promises to get bright soon.  Cool and breezy, but very comfortable feeling, not at all what the thermometer says (maybe my morning run in the cold has shifted my comfort zone a bit today).  The day just has a certain feel that I can't find words to describe, something from a memory, something I can't seem to put my finger on.  I push the button on the the radio, steering away from some mindless electronic pop song, and the sound of Don Henley begins to haunt my thoughts.

The Camry is gone, I'm in an old Trans Am.  The sun is starting to peak through the clouds, it'll burst through any minute and fulfill the promise of a warm sunny day.  Just over the next ridge is the beach, surf crashing, joggers getting in their exercise before the heat and bikinis start to get in the way.  I'm flying along the road, the whole world seems behind me as I struggle to obey the lyrics.  Don't look back, you can never look back.

A lifetime (or maybe 3 minutes) later I slow the Camry for a school zone.  Over the next ridge I can see the smoke from the John Amos Power Plant, telling me that the Kanawha River will be in view soon, with trains racing along its gravel banks and coal barges silently creeping downriver.  My thermometer says 30, suddenly it feels like it.  An electric beat starts up, foreshadowing some nonsense by Lady Gaga.  The moment is gone.

Summer is a beautiful time of year.  But I still have to go to work 5 days a week, there is no summer vacation for adults, no lazy months of forgetting all we've learned through the winter.  As much as I wish it were not so, I am no longer one of the boys of summer.  Today I find myself looking back, and feeling small and weak and wholly inadequate for the what the next couple of weeks hold.


It's been a weird start to what promises to be a weird (and possibly bad) day.  I'm off to re-stoke the fire, get my focus aimed forward again, and hopefully tonight I'll write Part 4 so that I can get it posted tomorrow morning.  Weird day...

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Part 3-B: Hill Running

Uphill Workouts

So why did I decide to leave hill-specific workouts out of the last post and give them their own short spot here?  Because I don't do them.  I don't believe in their effectiveness, I don't see them as useful, and I think they may even be counter-productive sometimes.  If there are hills on a course I am running, so be it (and here in WV, there probably are!).  But I never go actively looking for them, an I don't do hill repeats.

People tend to put hill workouts early in their training cycle to build leg strength - running against gravity does force more leg muscle fibers to be recruited, stimulating improvement.  But squats do the same thing, and they can be done in addition to your running on a given day, instead of replacing it.  Cross country coaches (I hate to badmouth people who are giving up their time to coach young runners, but so many of them are so bad at it) tend to not only put these workouts early in season, but also during any week before a race on a hilly course.  How many times have any of you been in a race that you ran up the same hill 10 times?

Generally speaking, if you run uphill with good form (lean into it, hips forward, etc.), you can let your conditioning do the work, and you don't have to try to prepare specifically for any hill.  This particular view is my own, based on experience and observation, not any particular research I've done - take from it what you will.

Downhill Running

While I don't advocate doing specific downhill workouts, I do suggest doing one or two sets of downhill strides after easy workouts.  They don't have to be long or steep, the point isn't conditioning, it's practicing safe downhill running form so that when you have to go down one in a race, you don't get hurt, or fall, but can still keep pace and not give up any ground.

Here's the sciencey bit as to why I don't do these as a true workout.  Downhill running requires significant eccentric contraction of the leg muscles.  This is when your muscle must contract and provide strength while it is in a stretched position - you typically get this from braking forces during each stride just a little bit, but downhill it is much greater.  Eccentric contractions can provide a great workout, but they have a huge downside:  they almost always leave you sore.  Very sore.  So sore that I feel the benefits don't outweigh the consequences.  So I try to do maybe one set of 5 or 6 runs downhill of maybe 100 yards after an easy day sometime in the spring.  If I don't find time for it, oh well.  I can always practice running form during my easy runs.


As for my training, I felt 100% better Wednesday afternoon, and was burning to get out there this morning for a hard workout.  Cold and clear (28 degrees), I piled on the layers, and hit the road for 1/4 mile repeats - 12 of them, at around a 6:40 pace.  I hit most of my targets, but was utterly gassed out by about the 8th or 9th interval.  I'm glad I don't have to do that again until Tuesday.

I hope everyone is ready for it, because we're heading into the meat of my training philosophy, tempo (Part 4) and interval (Part 5) training...

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Part 3-A: Fartleks

Fartlek Runs

One of the most important types of training run for early in a training cycle (and definitely the one with the most fun name) is the fartlek run.  It also happens to be one of the easiest "hard" workouts available.  In its barest, simplest form, a fartlek run is one in which you run short, fast bursts, then go at an easy jog to recover, then repeat.  It doesn't have to be organized in any way - you can structure it if you like, or just pick a distance and go hard when you feel like it, recover as long as you need, and go again.  A key focus here is form, working to keep good running form while running fast begins to ingrain that good form into your muscle memory so that when you fatigue later in a race, your form doesn't go all to hell and get you injured.

Fartlek work is good early on because it allows you to put quality miles on your legs without the kind of stresses that come from more intense workouts like tempo and interval running.  At the cellular level, the short bursts of speed are mostly anaerobic, stimulating your fast twitch muscle fibers and forcing your body to use both the aerobic and anaerobic metabolic processes.  It is probably important to note that while most people refer to running as either anaerobic or aerobic, it is of course almost always a mixture of the two.  Even when going very hard, you aren't using anaerobic metabolism entirely, your body just can't sustain it for more than 200m or 300m.  But for simplicity here, and to remove as much of the sciencey-ness of things, I will treat the two as polar opposites, black and white, with a clear line drawn between.

At the whole body level, you begin to feel the burn - in both your legs and your lungs.  Your body doesn't like the anaerobic pathway.  It prefers to process energy with oxygen.  When you suddenly push things, your breathing speeds up to try and keep up - which it can't.  You may feel a little burn in your leg muscles as waste products begin to build up.  Then you slow down, your breathing catches up, and those waste products are flushed away faster than they can accumulate.  All of this happens fast, so fast you don't realize it - you just know that you are uncomfortable, then you're not.  The body always seeks balance (the internal balance of the body is called homeostasis, and your body's primary goal is to maintain this), and uses feedback as a way to get it - you run harder, your body wants more air to keep itself aerobic so it speeds up your breathing, your legs burn with the accumulation of wastes until you are forced to slow down, when the burn goes away the body knows to slow your breathing back down.  Tim Noakes theorized that there is some kind of central governor process in your brain that uses these feedback systems to regulate homeostasis - see, not every good idea came from the Kenyans.  Noakes is a South African, and was also one of the pioneers in researching hydration during exercise and the importance of electrolyte balance.  Smart guy.

So the questions you must have are, "why do I care about all that science mumbo jumbo?", "how do I design a fartlek workout and what kind of improvement will I see because of it?", and in my mind, the most important, "where in the world did the name 'fartlek' come from?".

Why do you care?  Most of you probably don't.  People don't really care "how" a computer works, only that it does.  But for some of us, we can't help but be curious about everything...

How do you design a fartlek workout?  Easy, without designing it.  Fartlek runs can easily be done by feel, just going out and running based on when you feel like speeding up and slowing down.  They're a good way to ease into harder workouts, since the lack of structure allows them to easily be done on the roads and they typically don't have goals and targets like other workouts.  I like to do 4 or 5 miles, with maybe 10 or 12 speed ups during the run of 20-30 seconds, running at around the pace I'd use for a one mile race.  The other fartlek workout I like is loosely based on the original fartlek workout:

1 mile warm up
1 mile run at 5k race pace
1/2 mile jogged recovery
3 1/2 miles of jogging with 10-15 seconds bursts of speed, with the last 1/4 mile as fast as possible
1 mile cool down

For those keeping score, that's 7 miles.  Where did this crazy workout come from?  It's related to the next question.

Where did the name fartlek come from?  Sweden, it turns out.  The Swedish cross country teams were getting hammered by the Finns back in the 1920's, and a coach named Gösta Holmér devised a plan that involved training portions at both faster and slower than race pace to simultaneously train speed and endurance.  He was one of the pioneers in running training (and another non-Kenyan who's ideas I like).  The name itself means "speed play".  My 7 mile fartlek is based on his original workout for the Swedish cross country team.


I've deliberately left hill running out of this post, saving it for the next one.  I have little to say about it, but had much to say here and didn't want to make this any longer than it already is.  As for my own training, I haven't ran since Monday due to a stomach bug.  I have high hopes for tomorrow morning, but I'm deciding day-to-day.

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