Friday, February 27, 2015

Fartlek Friday: Recovery Fartlek

  This weeks fartlek friday is a little something different.  Instead of focusing on a hard session we will look at a session for recovery.  Most of us just go out and slog around at a slow pace on our easy days.  At best we may do some strides after an easy or moderate jog.  However if you look at the programs of some of the most successful runners in the world you will see things like easy fartlek and 20 kilometers with short variations for speed.  These sessions fall in places where a workout wouldn't be possible or advisable, the day before or after very hard sessions or races.  So what do they know that you are missing?

  Running well is a game of speed.  It has long been known that in running speed kills all those who don't have it. Yet still so many of us, particularly those who fall into the weekend warrior or regionally competitive groups do very little fast running.  In a normal week we do maybe two workouts, a race and a few strides and that is a great week.  Many times we may go days or even weeks with all or nearly all our running at paces ranging from 1 to 3 minutes per mile slower than our race pace.

  Then we watch with awe the best in the world and wonder what they have we don't.  The answer is strength with speed.  Most who chase the best possess one or the other or only some of each.  Now some of the difference between you and the lads and lasses in the Golden league has to do with Momma and Poppa.  Lets be honest not every guy has the genetics to run 13:00 and not every gal can be a 15:00 monster.  Still much less of the gap between you and them is genetic, or illicit chemical use, than you think. The two biggest differences I see are one the huge efforts expended to build aerobic power through fast steady running, IE various types of tempo and progression runs, and two huge amounts of relaxed FAST running, SPEED.

  So often we use fast and hard as interchangeable terms.  The thing is they are not at all interchangeable.  The biggest lesson I learned in my years is fast is not hard and hard is not fast.  Sometimes they happen together but they should largely be trained separately.  If you want to be a speed demon you need to be able to run very fast while you are relaxed.  If you want that you need to PRACTICE running fast while you are RELAXED.

  One of the ways of doing this is to run fast on your recovery days.  Note fast not hard.  A great way of doing this is to slow your recovery run pace down a little bit and mix in some short quick burst of speed.  Not at a max sprint, not killer drives but pleasantly fast accelerations run only long enough to feel quick and not long enough to get tired.  Between these flashes of speed you should have long breaks.  More than recovery you should be really stretching it out.  This is a run with some quick spurts not a workout with long rests.
 
  This session should be as long as your normal recovery run and done on as pleasant a route as you can find.  I imagine it in a cool forest on soft pine needle trails or running around rolling fields in the english country side.  I actually run it in 15 degree weather on a heavily trafficked loop dodging cars and fearing for my life around every 12 foot snow bank covered corner.  But not everything is ideal and in my mind I drift to that pine forest and I'm just killing it!

  After a few times of doing this you will discover you can often recover better with a session like this than with a regular run and over the long haul this extra relaxed speed will go a long way to improving your muscular endurance and efficiency making you one who kills with speed rather than one who is killed by it.  Ok full discloser this workout alone is not going to change your world but it can be one piece to the larger puzzle of finding the path to unlocking your full running potential.

4 comments:

danny said...

I see this speed variation workouts in almost everyone of Canovas prescribed schedules. Usually 30-45 seconds fast every 2 to 3 minutes.

I try to pick a pace that will make 5k pace feel a little easier. Is it useful to kill 2 birds with one stone by running the recovery at a slower tempo pace?

ex; 5k is 5:20
40 second speed @ 4:50
2 minute recovery @ 6:15 to 6:30

Or just save the tempo work for tempo days.

Thank You

nateruns@hotmail.com said...

That looks very structured. I would say it is better to just run by feel and hit a number of different paces and run different lengths of time for the reps on this session. Also this is still a recovery session so that easy pace given the 5k pace is quite quick. So in place of a recovery day I would say this isn't a great plan. HOWEVER if you were planning on doing this in place of a fundamental tempo run as a way to as you put it kill to birds with one stone and mix some speed into that moderate long tempo I think that is a GREAT idea. I sometimes do a session where I run 1min fast every mile and the recoveries are at my fundamental tempo pace and it is a great session. What you have laid out is probably a bit more taxing but a great idea. If it works well for you I'll do a blog on it and we can it Danny's dandy or Danny's danger run. Ok both those names suck but you know we'll come up with something.
-nate

danny said...

How about the DummKopf Danny run. In order to accurately represent said runner who makes perpetual mistakes. The recovery fartlek is akin to the KISS principle for me. Just the way I like it. I think the real trick to this running game, is how do we find the joy and beauty of it everyday. Am I fit? do I suck? I'm gonna kill it, Who am I kidding? I want wine and pizza now. This recovery fartlek frees me from the self induced pressure that's omnipresent. Thanks for being a good dude Nate.

Anonymous said...

Wow, really great post!

I finally understand what Canova means with fartlek in his schedules.

Thanks for writing this blog, the amount of information you provide is priceless.