What do you think of this fartlek workout?

mark b wrote:

This is an interval session ; any session where the duration of the hard efforts and the recoveries are fixed in advance - whether by time or distance - is not a fartlek session.

This.

I remember when I was in high school and thought I had to answers to everything.

I like how you ask for opinions expecting everyone to agree with you and when you realized no one did you attack them for suggesting it's a decent workout if you run it right.

Who you talkin to?

All fartlek workouts are interval workouts.

Yaboy34 wrote:

1. No because that would end up being 14 minutes of 4:45 pace with the other 14 minutes hovering around 5:15 pace for her expectation. 5.5 miles at 5 flat pace is not gunna happen for me at this age/stage in training.

2. Maybe you should read my post. The issue is the 15 second "rest" going into the 1:30 hard each time.

Read and understand my explanation of the workout or ask questions before you begin to immediately bash me.

You should have mentioned this in your first post. 5:15 pace for the recovery portions is absolutely absurd for a 9:30 3200 runner. Unless you're a 14:00 5k guy there's no way you're completing the workout at the paces your coach expects. Talk to your coach about adjusting the paces to better fit your level of fitness. There's a huge number of ways you could do it. For example, you could do the fast portions of 3200 pace and the slow portions at a recovery run pace. Or you could do the fast portions at 10k pace and the slow portions at a faster pace, say 6:15s. Or you could adjust the pace of the fast segments to reflect its duration, e.g. do the 90 second segments at 10k pace, the 60 second segments at 5k pace, the 30 second segments at 3200 pace and the 15 second segments at mile or 800 pace.

Straw M Thoroughman wrote:

All fartlek workouts are interval workouts.

But fartlek is a different kind of interval workout. One where you (if you do them properly) go by feel not by pace or time or distance.

incontinent wrote:

Straw M Thoroughman wrote:

All fartlek workouts are interval workouts.

But fartlek is a different kind of interval workout. One where you (if you do them properly) go by feel not by pace or time or distance.

Semantics.

If you are being honest with your effort you'll find there is no difference except for not having to mentally gear up for what you know is coming.

This is similar to a workout in the book Running Tough. You can structure it as intervals or tempo depending on how hard you do the fast stuff and the recovery. In the book, you don't get back up from 15 to 90 but do everything double so 90/90/60/60/60/60/30/30/30/30/15/15/15/15 - all with equal jog so you get 10 minutes of hard running in only 20 minutes. By the end you're really working. I like the workout a lot. Certainly the way you do it going back up the ladder is going to be tough going into that second 90.

Straw M Thoroughman wrote:

incontinent wrote:

But fartlek is a different kind of interval workout. One where you (if you do them properly) go by feel not by pace or time or distance.

Semantics.

If you are being honest with your effort you'll find there is no difference except for not having to mentally gear up for what you know is coming.

Fartleks are meant to be random intervals.

Not a Coach wrote:

Straw M Thoroughman wrote:

Semantics.

If you are being honest with your effort you'll find there is no difference except for not having to mentally gear up for what you know is coming.

Fartleks are meant to be random intervals.

Yeah traditional fartleks maybe. However if you want your "fartlek" session to do the most for you, it needs to be structured. That sends it into an interval session really and not a traditional fartlek.

6 of one and half a dozen of the other.

I think a fartlek session needs structure to be effective, anyway.

indeed wrote:

mark b wrote:

This is an interval session ; any session where the duration of the hard efforts and the recoveries are fixed in advance - whether by time or distance - is not a fartlek session.

This.

Right. Not a fartlek.

I think the workout is fine. You probably won't run 5'15 pace for the 'offs' but it makes me think that your coach may have observed that your team lacks focus during tempo runs or longer bouts, so he/she wants you to do this workout instead and not jog during the rest periods. I wouldn't schedule this workout every week, but sounds like a good hard effort to use throughout the season.

Not a Coach wrote:

Straw M Thoroughman wrote:

Semantics.

If you are being honest with your effort you'll find there is no difference except for not having to mentally gear up for what you know is coming.

Fartleks are meant to be random intervals.

Unless you have had a lobotomy nothing about what you choose to do is random.

Straw M Thoroughman wrote:

Not a Coach wrote:

Fartleks are meant to be random intervals.

Unless you have had a lobotomy nothing about what you choose to do is random.

The only real choice is whether or not to kill yourself every morning.

Camus wrote:

Straw M Thoroughman wrote:

Unless you have had a lobotomy nothing about what you choose to do is random.

The only real choice is whether or not to kill yourself every morning.

I don't think it's possible to kill yourself every morning.

Yaboy34 wrote:

4:45 pace with the other 14 minutes hovering around 5:15 pace

BS

young master wrote:

Yaboy34 wrote:

4:45 pace with the other 14 minutes hovering around 5:15 pace

BS

Oh look, another idiot who thinks that this was what I actually did! NO NO NO. See this is why I posted this in the first place, to get confirmation that my coach is crazy. The above quoted is what my coach WANTED and EXPECTED me to do.. No I did not actually do that.

The first time I was instructed to do that I immediately thought what you all think: BS, and then went ahead and ran the hard part around 4:50-55 pace and the slower part around 6:15-30.

I then found that this in itself was killing me too because i drained myself in the beginning and having to do 4 of the 90 seconds portions instead of two right after only resting 15 seconds was not enough.

OK, Yaboy,

I see these types of complaints here once in a while and I will give you the benefit of the doubt that the OP of each has been someone different and not you continually posting anti-coach vitriol. So, I will assume that you haven't read what I'm about to write although you apparently need to. Still, though, I put this thought out there several times and your generation doesn't seem to get this. Amazing that I see essentially this same thread so often and I'm only an occasional MB viewer. Here goes:

I am old. Your parents generation. I do run now and did a race this last weekend. However, at your age I was faster than now. My high school running 'career' (if you could call it that). Was actually the highlight of my running life in some ways inncluding PRs. I never met my HS track coach. Let me be clear and not beat around the bush:

I NEVER MET MY HIGH SCHOOL TRACK COACH.

I never once complained to anybody about someone I didn't respect 'forcing me' to do this, that, or the other. This was pre-internet but I never bitched to my running friends or the guy at Fleet Foot or the Runner's World letters to the editor or my parents... Or anyone about how 'my coach' sucks. This is because an individual cannot be 'my coach' unless I decide she is. The school district lacks the authority to make somebody 'your coach'. If everybody in the bounaries of the school disrtrict were forced to obey someone, you'd have a point. I would understand all the dissatisfaction from today's teenagerss (as far a coaching goes, anyway). However, the fact that you live within the district, are enrolled at the school, or your parents' outrageous property taxes fund some A-hole assistant football coach turned XC tyrant does not make you subject to her. Ignore the coach run by with middle finger held high. Or get into it and follow the program.

If the day comes that I can afford to and am fast enough to justify it (neither is likely but oh well) I could hire McMillan, Hudson, JD, maybe even Colorado Mark. At that point one of 2 things will happen. I will willingly, or at least grudgingly, obey and see what happens. OR, ditch 'em like Alan Webb. At no point will I feel stuck or trapped or 'forced'. Teenage runners of America, hear this:

YOU ARE NOT MY COACH UNLESS I SAY YOU ARE!!

Anyone who says "listen to your coach" or "your coach knows what they are doing" or as someone said earlier "buy into the the system" clearly never had a bad coach. Coming from someone who had a terrible coach in college trust me when I say that this is not always true.

That being said I think that this workout does have potential (and your coach must have some idea what they're doing if they got you into 9:30 shape). If I were your coach I would make the rest equal on each interval (thats just personally how I like to run fartleks). For example maybe 90 hard (45 easy) 60 (45) 30 (45) 15 (45) repeat. This actually gives you less total rest but a little more after the 30 and the 15 allowing you to recover for the next 90 second interval.

You also need to realize that letsrun is 95% trolls/bitter untalented runners who have had lackluster careers, so this may not be the best place to ask a serious question. You should probably talk to your coach on the matter, express your concerns, and maybe provide a few alternative ideas to the workout. Any good coach will listen to what you have to say and to your ideas (that doesn't mean they have to change anything but they will at least listen).

I'd put my money down the coach never actually said "Run 4:45 for the hards and 5:15 for the easy parts".

I'm guessing it was "run at 2 mile effort" and something along the lines of "don't do the Muhammad Ali shuffle for your rest".

Take the tampon out and run.