I saw this on a recent thread and starting thinking about it. Seems incredibly boring, but is it a solid workout?
5,000m fartlek (100m surge, 100m recover)
I saw this on a recent thread and starting thinking about it. Seems incredibly boring, but is it a solid workout?
5,000m fartlek (100m surge, 100m recover)
What are you trying to accomplish?
Depends how hard the surges are.
I did a very similar workout to that this season. It was 15 laps of horseshoes (run the straights hard and jog the turns) I didn't like the workout. The distance of each on and off part of the fartlek was too short and it was hard to develop any sort of rhythm. It felt like i was just constantly changing pace without any sustained effort
tried dat wrote:
I did a very similar workout to that this season. It was 15 laps of horseshoes (run the straights hard and jog the turns) I didn't like the workout. The distance of each on and off part of the fartlek was too short and it was hard to develop any sort of rhythm. It felt like i was just constantly changing pace without any sustained effort
Changes of pace are probably the one thing elite American distance runners need to focus on (besides stuff like genetics, being born at altitude, etc). Kenyans drop us easily not just because they are fitter but because they are used to changing paces quickly. Think Ryan Hall in NYC, Tegenkamp in Beijing, etc.
A workout I used to do, which might accomplish the same as the workout you describe and without those problems you list is to do 300 at 10k pace 100 jog for 5 miles or so. When I was running about 33 for 10k I'd do the 300s in 60 and the recovery 100 in 30. So all together I'd get 8k in 30 minutes which was about marathon race pace, but with a lot of it at 10k pace. That was gentle enough that I didn't really have to ratchet it up too quickly during the fast parts.
Just a suggestion.
I'm not looking at this workout personally, but am more asking what it WOULD accomplish?