Monday PM ran from school after work, 25min warm up on the roads then a full drills session, about 15mins, then 12x100m 'on the minute' in 16.6, 16.3, 16.6, 15.9, 16.1, 16.0, 16.1, 15.9, 16.1, 15.8, 16.1, 15.8, felt good form wise, felt easy aerobically, muscularly bit tired after. 5min cool down tot. 5.5 miles
Tuesday PM vermont loop 5 mile with Uta, 32:49 tot. 5
Wednesday 3PM massage and drills with Anna
5PM 10k coventry loop, 40:51 tot. 6.25
Thursday PM 3+ warm up, then 6x1min fartlek with drills, so I would do 2 drills from my full drill set then a 1min rep on a very flat stretch of road, and repeat. I measured the stretch I was covering and was happily surprised to see I was running around 66's per 400m pace. I normally need to be very fit to run that kind of pace for anything over 200m and I'm not at all fit so it made me feel like the form work is paying off at least in a little way, cool down, total 6 miles
Friday PM 10k coventry loop with Uta, 42:29 total 6.25
Saturday mid day 40:13 around Phillips Academy. first 25 mins with Melissa and Uta. tot. 5++
Sunday AM a couple miles of warm up broken up a bit, some strides and some race pace efforts of 30 to 45 seconds, a good number of drills but not a full set. Race Great Island 5k, 4th place in 16:11. This is the first time I have run a 5k over 16mins since the fall of my senior year in high school. It was a shit race. I didn't want to get sucked out too fast, which I didn't but then I was too slow at the mile, 5:14- (I was 5:15 at the 10k two weeks ago). I increased the effort but not enough in the second mile very much running in no mans land. I ran another 5:14 (10:29), but that mile is a bit slower than the first. I tried to get after it the last mile but I just really didn't have that much juice and I was also splitting my mental efforts to focus on trying to have good form. 5:09 (15:38) for the third mile.
Honestly I probably shouldn't have been racing. I signed up for the races I'm in this fall back this summer when I assumed I would be much further along in the comeback and would be ready to start to race into shape instead I'm barely training. I'll race again in a couple of weeks and hopefully by then I'll at least be in a better spot mentally and will be able to produce a better effort.
PM cross training bikram yoga.
Summary I really hope things are going to start to get better. I'm very happy that I got in 3 quality efforts and the miles were up slightly( ~40 for the week) This coming week I'm hoping to add in some morning runs to up the miles a bit and to keep the workouts.
Showing posts with label Fartlek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fartlek. Show all posts
Monday, October 10, 2016
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Fartlek Friday the 6/1
The 6/1 fartlek is a moderate effort. Really it can be a 5/1, 6/1, 7/1, 8/1 whatever. The idea is that you run 1minute hard every mile or so. In order to make things easier, i.e. you don't need to keep track of mile marks etc.. you simply do a hard minute on every 6th minute, or whatever whole number is nearest to your regular pace.
So on a half hour or so run you would go hard starting at the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th, 30th minute marks. In between you run at the fast end of your normal training pace. This is a GREAT way to mix in faster running when you don't have a lot of time or motivation for regular workouts. It is great for early in a season or when coming back from injury and your not quite ready for full workouts. To be honest you can do this run every day if you want and just get a touch of speed all the time.
So often we get in a rut of just running and not getting some faster running in. This workout is a great way of sneaking in a little speed when you aren't physically or emotionally up for a bigger effort. I use this sometimes after a crazy day at work when I am whimping out on a scheduled workout but rather than just slogging along at normal pace I can do one of these and the effort isn't that much different from a regular run but at the end of my regular 20k run I have done 12minutes of fast running so between 2 and 3 miles of quality work. Doing it once isn't a big deal but over time it can make a big difference.
I also love this one when I am traveling because you don't need to know how long the loop your doing is or how far you are going, or even where you are going. Just set the timer on your watch and start running.
The last great thing about this session is that if you are having a good day you can start hammering the rest minutes and it becomes a tempo with hammer intervals. Often I set out doing this because I'm lacking motivation and before you know it I'm running 5:20 to 5:30 pace on the recovery stretches and a salvage day becomes a great day.
So the next time you find yourself heading out for a run instead of the workout you should be doing try the 6/1 and you will at worst be a bit better off and at best save the day!
So on a half hour or so run you would go hard starting at the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th, 30th minute marks. In between you run at the fast end of your normal training pace. This is a GREAT way to mix in faster running when you don't have a lot of time or motivation for regular workouts. It is great for early in a season or when coming back from injury and your not quite ready for full workouts. To be honest you can do this run every day if you want and just get a touch of speed all the time.
So often we get in a rut of just running and not getting some faster running in. This workout is a great way of sneaking in a little speed when you aren't physically or emotionally up for a bigger effort. I use this sometimes after a crazy day at work when I am whimping out on a scheduled workout but rather than just slogging along at normal pace I can do one of these and the effort isn't that much different from a regular run but at the end of my regular 20k run I have done 12minutes of fast running so between 2 and 3 miles of quality work. Doing it once isn't a big deal but over time it can make a big difference.
I also love this one when I am traveling because you don't need to know how long the loop your doing is or how far you are going, or even where you are going. Just set the timer on your watch and start running.
The last great thing about this session is that if you are having a good day you can start hammering the rest minutes and it becomes a tempo with hammer intervals. Often I set out doing this because I'm lacking motivation and before you know it I'm running 5:20 to 5:30 pace on the recovery stretches and a salvage day becomes a great day.
So the next time you find yourself heading out for a run instead of the workout you should be doing try the 6/1 and you will at worst be a bit better off and at best save the day!
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.
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.
Monday, February 16, 2015
Weekly Training Log February 9 to 15, 2015 Recovery
Monday
Mid Day- 48:16, around 10k on roads in snow storm, first 4.2 with Melissa total 10k
PM Bikram yoga (90minutes hot yoga)
XT whartons, rubber band exercises, shoveling and yoga
Tuesday
AM Bear Hill 4.2 with Uta, snowy. total 4.2
PM Regular 10 on snowy roads, 68:58, roads very bad this was actually a pretty good effort, I think perhaps a bit too good. total 10+
XT whartons, rubber band
Wednesday
PM on treadmill with Ruben. 3.5 warm up, with 4 "strides" of 15 seconds at 12.5mph, 13mph, 13.5mph, 14mph respectively. switch shirts do whartons. goal was 6x2 miles at marathon pace. Very tired so didn't figure that would happen. 1/2 mile get up to speed then 2 miles in 10:15, 1/2mile in 2:50, 1 mile in 5:06. Stopped just tired as shit. Ruben manned up for 5 reps. I did 3 miles cool down total 10.5 miles
XT whartons, rubber band
Thursday
PM 50mins in snow storm with Uta, the dog, at least she was having a good time. total around 8 miles we were moving pretty good.
XT whartons, rubber band
Friday
PM On curve treadmill (manual) 3.3 miles warm up with 4 strides, 25mins, Moneghetti fartlek on curve (2x90, 4x60, 4x30, 4x15 with matching rest) 20 total minutes covered 3.55 miles, my best on the curve before this was 3.46 two weeks ago. This was only 5:38 pace but a very good effort. The curve is much slower than regular running. At the end of December I did this session on the curve and only covered 3.25 miles. To put this in perspective I ran around 4:57 pace on the roads a week or two after that. I have dropped my time on the curve by 32seconds per mile since then. I doubt it transfers directly but the improvement is still very very good. 20 minutes cool down ended up with 65minutes on the curve and just under 10 miles
XT whartons, rubber band
Saturday
Spent the morning shoveling and breaking up ice jams on roof. This sucked.
1pm road 7.8 solo, very poor road conditions for most of run, 52mins total 8-
4pm road 10k, 46:19, first 4.2 with Melissa and Uta, roads very rough shape tot. 6+
XT whartons, rubber band
Sunday
had first specific workout scheduled but pushed it to monday because of Blizzard
AM 50mins steady on Curve and then 5 strides with 1min breaks between them total 8 miles
PM road 10k solo very very cold total 6,2 miles
XT whartons, rubber band, pull ups on assisted machine
Summary
Not an impressive week at all. Basically a recovery week after the bit special block last weekend. It was supposed to end with our first specific session but we'll be suffering through that in sub zero wind chills on some poor footing this afternoon because it is better conditions then during a blizzard yesterday. The weather in New England is never helpful but it has sort of been becoming a bigger pain every few days for the last month or so. I'm hoping it starts to move in the other direction over the next two weeks or so. The biggest difference between training now, with a full time job, and the good old days is that it is very hard to deal with curveballs like the weather. Luckily I have February vacation this week so I could bump the run to today but now as we get into the specific phase I really don't want to be doing modified 'effort' workouts and that is what snow storms generally force. Hope things are going well for you!
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Fartlek Friday Hammer the Hills
It was a bit of a right of passage to do a hammer the hills fartlek when I ran for George Davis at UML. He had a loop that was less than 5 miles long and had seven or eight hills. There was a great variety from short to long and shallow to steep. The toughest hill was the last one and in true George fashion there was a two way stop you had to run through, the unsafe way, half way up. George used this as a staple in athletes returning from injury before letting us back in with the wolves and as a great workout for someone who wouldn't be able to workout with the rest of the team on a given day. Simply it was a workout without any way to measure it objectively it was strictly a workout based on effort. Beyond that it was a workout that was sure to get a great effort and really start toughing you up.
So what is it? Super simple. You just hammer every time you go uphill. I really like to be a stickler about this. I mean a two stride bump in the road and I drop two hard strides. You run at your regular pace between runs. On a loop that is largely flat this is a nice moderate run with a few nice hard efforts to open up the system. On a very hilly loop this can be one of your hardest sessions. I would do this on a 1.5 mile loop in the Phillips Academy Sanctuary that is basically a loop around a valley so it has two killer long climbs each loop. Six or seven loops in there and I would be DONE!
When to do it? First I'm a huge fan of fartlek and hills most anytime as a workout on a day when the main plan may have fallen through or as the second workout for the week. Second this is a great bread and butter session if you are preparing for a cross country or hilly road racing. You can adjust the distance of the fartlek depending on the the distance of the race you are preparing for.
So what is it? Super simple. You just hammer every time you go uphill. I really like to be a stickler about this. I mean a two stride bump in the road and I drop two hard strides. You run at your regular pace between runs. On a loop that is largely flat this is a nice moderate run with a few nice hard efforts to open up the system. On a very hilly loop this can be one of your hardest sessions. I would do this on a 1.5 mile loop in the Phillips Academy Sanctuary that is basically a loop around a valley so it has two killer long climbs each loop. Six or seven loops in there and I would be DONE!
When to do it? First I'm a huge fan of fartlek and hills most anytime as a workout on a day when the main plan may have fallen through or as the second workout for the week. Second this is a great bread and butter session if you are preparing for a cross country or hilly road racing. You can adjust the distance of the fartlek depending on the the distance of the race you are preparing for.
Goal Race Fartlek distance
5k 3 to 5 miles
8k/10k 5 to 10 miles
half marathon 8 to 15 miles
Marathon 10 to 25 miles
What are you trying to accomplish with this workout? First anytime you do hills you are building your muscular strength. With this workout specifically you tend to get long breaks so you are working on flushing out latic acid completely which makes it a great transition workout between base work and heavy anaerobic work for 800 to 10k runners or early in cross country season. This is also an awesome session for building mental fortitude. It is real easy to get motivated for and not intimidating but you really have to dig down to get a good effort on tough hills later in the session.
Variations
You can run faster, as fast as fundamental tempo run pace, on the stretches between the hills to make this a specific prep for a race strategy where you plan to hammer the hills. This makes it a great aerobic session and really forces your body to flush out a lot of acid at a quick pace on the recoveries.
Another option is to do this on your long runs. This can be a great first step towards some of the hard long workouts I and others advise for the marathon.
A variation on the long run is to find a place with real long climbs. One summer I lived near Northfield Mountain in western Massachusetts and it has a ton of trails. I would do my Sunday long runs up there. I often would push the long uphills, 1 to 3 miles, and just recover and fly on the long downhills. It was ok if I found myself completely hammering quads burning and gasping for air at 7 miles into a 22 mile long run because I was going to recover on the next downhill but it really can build the mental fortitude as well as the aerobic and muscular endurance. This session was almost like doing a series of uphill tempos with 10 to 20 minute easy running breaks between them. I'll tell you I never ran better on hills than I did the fall after I spent the summer doing those runs!
So the next time you are about to skip a workout because life got in the way or whatever and you are about to just head out for your regular old training loop MAN UP and Hammer the Hills!! You will sneak a workout in where you would other wise have just a regular training run, you will be tougher for having done it and chances are you'll have a lot of fun in the process.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Fartlek Friday "The Golf Ball Workout"
If you live in New England like I do than it will be a good long while before you can take a crack at this one but though I have only gotten to do it a few times it is one of the most fun and challenging sessions I have done and I really do love it.
This is a UMass Lowell workout. George Davis created it, as far as I know, Gary Gardner still uses it, again as far as I know. We used to do this session once a year and only if you qualified for nationals in cross country as a team. It was a perfect hard session a week to 10 days out from nationals because it wasn't very long, 12 to 15 mins, but it was very fast and hard. It becomes basically a surging time trial.
Now as a Umass Lowell workout we must start with it's contradictions. You play with a tennis ball not a golf ball. Yes I know what the name of the workout is. I guess back in the day they originally did the workout with golf balls and it was a damn disaster. Kids diving in ponds trying to find sunken balls mid workout in November. Not good. Tennis balls however were easier to decorate for quick identification, and they float.
This is a team workout. You need at least two people to play. We always did it as a competition to see who's team could finish first. This part is not needed but it helps! We would do the same 10 or 12 holes on a local golf course that would let us on course for workouts in the very late season, say staring in November. Our set up had you doing 5 or 6 holes and then making a long run between two spread out holes in the middle. You could set this up with more or less holes and play with the order to adjust the workout to what you think your team needs. I know Gary has the ladies team do a shorter version as they are getting ready for 6k, not a 10k at nationals and they tend to be a lower mileage group than the men.
How the game is played. Everyone has a teammate. Uniforms are encouraged- I did it in a shirt and tie one year- but you know regular gear is ok too. Every team has a tennis ball. It should be made easily identifiable from other teams tennis balls. If it isn't your in for chaos after the first throw. The rules are simple. You lay out a course and every team needs to know it in advance or you are going to need a lot of volunteers on course to keep people in the right places. Each team is trying to finish the course as fast as possible. You can not carry the ball more than 3 steps, except between holes. You must alternate throws with your teammate. YOU MUST WALK ON GREENS AND IN SAND TRAPS, failure to obey the last two rules result in disqualification. Failure to obey all other rules will result in you being called a cheater by the other teams.
Ok you start on the tee and throw the ball towards the fairway and your teammate runs and on the fly picks up the ball and throws it further along, you meanwhile are sprinting like a mad man to get past said teammate and repeat the process. Finally one of you will toss the ball up on the green. You both now putt. That is to say you walk on the green still alternating turns and tap the ball until it goes in the hole. I'm unclear if it is officially ok to tap the ball while it is still rolling though for the record I always did. I may have been cheating.
Once the ball goes in the hole you grab it and WALK off the green. As soon as you are off the green you sprint like a mother to the next tee and begin the process again.
Now if the ball goes in a water trap we always had two options. Option one was find a coach who had extra balls. This option meant certain defeat. Option 2 was get your ass in the pond. Mid November or not every respectable athlete took option 2. I have seen both a very nice shallow dive that lead to a sort of dolphin like move coming up under the ball straight into a throw as well as a very well done cannonball to break through a half inch of ice on a particularly cold afternoon.
I have also made some very not graceful splashes myself over the years.
Anyway it is a crazy tough surging session that is a great time trial type fartlek practice for cross country racing. Great workout, great team building, great way to get arrested if you don't get permission from the Golf club first.
This is a UMass Lowell workout. George Davis created it, as far as I know, Gary Gardner still uses it, again as far as I know. We used to do this session once a year and only if you qualified for nationals in cross country as a team. It was a perfect hard session a week to 10 days out from nationals because it wasn't very long, 12 to 15 mins, but it was very fast and hard. It becomes basically a surging time trial.
Now as a Umass Lowell workout we must start with it's contradictions. You play with a tennis ball not a golf ball. Yes I know what the name of the workout is. I guess back in the day they originally did the workout with golf balls and it was a damn disaster. Kids diving in ponds trying to find sunken balls mid workout in November. Not good. Tennis balls however were easier to decorate for quick identification, and they float.
This is a team workout. You need at least two people to play. We always did it as a competition to see who's team could finish first. This part is not needed but it helps! We would do the same 10 or 12 holes on a local golf course that would let us on course for workouts in the very late season, say staring in November. Our set up had you doing 5 or 6 holes and then making a long run between two spread out holes in the middle. You could set this up with more or less holes and play with the order to adjust the workout to what you think your team needs. I know Gary has the ladies team do a shorter version as they are getting ready for 6k, not a 10k at nationals and they tend to be a lower mileage group than the men.
How the game is played. Everyone has a teammate. Uniforms are encouraged- I did it in a shirt and tie one year- but you know regular gear is ok too. Every team has a tennis ball. It should be made easily identifiable from other teams tennis balls. If it isn't your in for chaos after the first throw. The rules are simple. You lay out a course and every team needs to know it in advance or you are going to need a lot of volunteers on course to keep people in the right places. Each team is trying to finish the course as fast as possible. You can not carry the ball more than 3 steps, except between holes. You must alternate throws with your teammate. YOU MUST WALK ON GREENS AND IN SAND TRAPS, failure to obey the last two rules result in disqualification. Failure to obey all other rules will result in you being called a cheater by the other teams.
Ok you start on the tee and throw the ball towards the fairway and your teammate runs and on the fly picks up the ball and throws it further along, you meanwhile are sprinting like a mad man to get past said teammate and repeat the process. Finally one of you will toss the ball up on the green. You both now putt. That is to say you walk on the green still alternating turns and tap the ball until it goes in the hole. I'm unclear if it is officially ok to tap the ball while it is still rolling though for the record I always did. I may have been cheating.
Once the ball goes in the hole you grab it and WALK off the green. As soon as you are off the green you sprint like a mother to the next tee and begin the process again.
Now if the ball goes in a water trap we always had two options. Option one was find a coach who had extra balls. This option meant certain defeat. Option 2 was get your ass in the pond. Mid November or not every respectable athlete took option 2. I have seen both a very nice shallow dive that lead to a sort of dolphin like move coming up under the ball straight into a throw as well as a very well done cannonball to break through a half inch of ice on a particularly cold afternoon.
I have also made some very not graceful splashes myself over the years.
Anyway it is a crazy tough surging session that is a great time trial type fartlek practice for cross country racing. Great workout, great team building, great way to get arrested if you don't get permission from the Golf club first.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Moneghetti Fartlek
Steve Moneghetti, for whom the Moneghetti Fartlek is named, is an Australian distance runner who came very directly from great tradition that started with the Pat Clohessy coached group that produced other australian distance legends like Rob de Castella, Shaun Creighton and Simon Doyle. Steve himself was coached by the great Chris Wardlaw, a 2:11 marathoner. Steve invented this fartlek and did it pretty much every week for years, in fact he still does. Steve was a bronze medalist at the 1997 IAAF World championships in the marathon. He competed in 4 Olympic Marathons with 3 top 10 finishes and a best of 5th. His marathon PB is 2:08:16, he ran a half marathon best of 1:00:06. He is in many ways most notable for his incredible longevity at a very high level. He came onto the seen as an Australian junior national champion in 1982 and soon had his first world class performance, a bronze medal at the 1986 commonwealth games in 2:11:18 and then remained consistently among the worlds best through his 10th place finish at the 2000 Olympic marathon. He first broke 29:00 for 10k when he was 19 years old and last did it when he was 42! In between there was never a year where he failed to best the mark at least once on the road or track. Recently he ran a 1:09:43 half marathon which compared to the rest of this may not seem to impressive until you realize the man is now 52 years old!
The Moneghetti Fartlek itself is at once simple to perform and yet beautifully complex in how many systems it stresses and improves. It takes a mere 20mins to perform and yet it can be one of the hardest all around sessions you do.
You run 2x90seconds, 4x60seconds, 4x30seconds, 4x15 seconds. Each hard effort is followed by a QUICK recovery jog of the same time. You should run the 90 second reps at about 5k effort and as the reps get shorter try to run them a bit faster so that by the 15 second reps you are ATTEMPTING to sprint at near max. The max will be easy but making that a sprint is a real job.
The real key to the workout, and the real devil of the workout, is that the recoveries are a QUICK jog. The quick jog means that in addition to the benefits of a normal anaerobic interval workout, i.e. increased latic tolerance, improved vo2max, increased efficiency at quicker speeds and greater muscular power this workout is also a GREAT aerobic tempo workout. In fact because you have to flush out the acid from the faster reps there is some evidence that this workout and others like it do more to improve your latic threshold, the single most important marker of fitness for races of 5k to marathon, than regular tempo runs or any other type of training.
Steve says that he normally would end up averaging around 3:05 per kilometer, 4:57 mile pace, for this session. Roughly around his marathon pace. That is with the rest included, obviously. It should be noted that this was mixed in to regular 130 mile weeks with 3 OTHER hard efforts. He also said that his fastest performance he covered exactly 7 kilometers in the 20 minutes. That is 4:35 mile pace with the RECOVERIES INCLUDED! My personal best session for this so far is averaging 4:55 per mile. I generally run between 5:00 and 5:10 per mile when I do it.
Why do this workout? It improves your latic threshold greatly which makes it a super session for general fitness for everyone from the miler to the marathoner. It is quick, simple and can be done anywhere; this is my staple workout when I am traveling. It touches on a number of paces and effort levels which means it really covers a lot in just one session. It is not so anaerobic that it will break you down or increase the risk of illness or injury if done regularly. Most importantly it teaches you to recover at a quick pace which in my experience is the single most important thing to teach your body in order to be a fast distance runner.
When to do this workout? Whenever! This is one of the few sessions you can be well justified in doing in any and all phases of your training. It is a jack of all trades workout that fits as well in a base phase as a specific phase and does wonders for the high school runner working towards a mile best or the Olympic hopeful looking to keep his latic threshold and muscular efficiency up well prepping for a 2:12 marathon.
So the next time you need a great workout to improve your threshold and your efficiency at pretty much all your racing speeds and perhaps time is tight do yourself a favor and dive into a Moneghetti Fartlek. It won't be the easiest session you ever do but it will likely be one of the best.
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| Steve Moneghetti running on the 6k "Moneghetti Track" around the Lake that he so regularly used for his famous fartlek. |
The Moneghetti Fartlek itself is at once simple to perform and yet beautifully complex in how many systems it stresses and improves. It takes a mere 20mins to perform and yet it can be one of the hardest all around sessions you do.
You run 2x90seconds, 4x60seconds, 4x30seconds, 4x15 seconds. Each hard effort is followed by a QUICK recovery jog of the same time. You should run the 90 second reps at about 5k effort and as the reps get shorter try to run them a bit faster so that by the 15 second reps you are ATTEMPTING to sprint at near max. The max will be easy but making that a sprint is a real job.
The real key to the workout, and the real devil of the workout, is that the recoveries are a QUICK jog. The quick jog means that in addition to the benefits of a normal anaerobic interval workout, i.e. increased latic tolerance, improved vo2max, increased efficiency at quicker speeds and greater muscular power this workout is also a GREAT aerobic tempo workout. In fact because you have to flush out the acid from the faster reps there is some evidence that this workout and others like it do more to improve your latic threshold, the single most important marker of fitness for races of 5k to marathon, than regular tempo runs or any other type of training.
Steve says that he normally would end up averaging around 3:05 per kilometer, 4:57 mile pace, for this session. Roughly around his marathon pace. That is with the rest included, obviously. It should be noted that this was mixed in to regular 130 mile weeks with 3 OTHER hard efforts. He also said that his fastest performance he covered exactly 7 kilometers in the 20 minutes. That is 4:35 mile pace with the RECOVERIES INCLUDED! My personal best session for this so far is averaging 4:55 per mile. I generally run between 5:00 and 5:10 per mile when I do it.
Why do this workout? It improves your latic threshold greatly which makes it a super session for general fitness for everyone from the miler to the marathoner. It is quick, simple and can be done anywhere; this is my staple workout when I am traveling. It touches on a number of paces and effort levels which means it really covers a lot in just one session. It is not so anaerobic that it will break you down or increase the risk of illness or injury if done regularly. Most importantly it teaches you to recover at a quick pace which in my experience is the single most important thing to teach your body in order to be a fast distance runner.
When to do this workout? Whenever! This is one of the few sessions you can be well justified in doing in any and all phases of your training. It is a jack of all trades workout that fits as well in a base phase as a specific phase and does wonders for the high school runner working towards a mile best or the Olympic hopeful looking to keep his latic threshold and muscular efficiency up well prepping for a 2:12 marathon.
So the next time you need a great workout to improve your threshold and your efficiency at pretty much all your racing speeds and perhaps time is tight do yourself a favor and dive into a Moneghetti Fartlek. It won't be the easiest session you ever do but it will likely be one of the best.
Friday, January 2, 2015
Traditional Fartlek
Around 1937 swedish coach Gosta Holmer, a retired decathlete who had won bronze at the 1912 Olympics in that event, invented a new type of workouts for his charges. Fartlek. Roughly translated it means speed play. This simple yet profound type of training would become the mainstay of his most famous proteges, Gunder Hagg and Arne Andersson, who would shatter dozens of world records and bring the mile world record from the mid 4:06's down to 4:01. Hagg would also become the first man ever to run under 14:00 for 5k producing a 13:58.2 in 1942. All this with the insanity of World War 2 roaring around them. Though 4:01and 13:58 are not nearly world class times today they are still, seventy years later, extremely exceptional times and when one considers they were achieved in the days before mondo tracks, before running shoes, heck before sneakers! It is really remarkable that two athletes could have reached the level they did.
There are now dozens of different structures of fartlek that have become famous. It is a type of training that has been part of nearly all the great coaches, from Lydiard and Bowermann to Canova and Salazar, recommended schedules. I will do many posts on fartlek but for this one we will focus on it in its most pure and simple state. The original speed play.
Fartlek done in its most basic and pure form needs no timing, no measurement, no plan and no specific surface, though I would suggest the most beautiful you can find and some decent footing for fast running. You do not need a watch. Heck if you really want to get in touch with your forerunners and be a full purist you can go without shoes. I often would do this on rainy days sneaking on a golf course for a barefoot fartlek on the grass.
Effort? The name tells it all, speed play, it is a game! You can play hard or play easy. Go how you feel. I have heard fartlek referred to as running animal style it could just as easily be called running like a child. Lydiard and Canova both like it as a light workout to transition into harder more specific sessions but for others, Steve Monaghetti comes to mind, it was a serous part of their hardest training. I suggest you use it in three different ways.
First Very light. Need to get in some strides and loosen up after a hard effort or in the days prior to a major race. Just let it rip a few times on a light run on soft surfaces. Open up and fly along but when it starts to get hard simply let up and recover fully before moving fast again. Your jogs between the efforts on these days should be light and slow.
Second moderate. Perhaps you want to mix in one more workout in a week but know if it is a real killer you won't be able to do your more important focus sessions for the week. Perhaps you are early in a cycle of training or you are returning from a layoff. Fartlek is perfect. You can vary the speeds and distances as well as the total time running. Easily stopping long before you are fully exhausted. Best of all you have no watch to tell you you aren't running fast enough or long enough. Your breaks between the fast efforts on these days should be at the pace of a fast training run. Not super fast but not shuffling along either.
Finally Hard. Go get it run short savage bursts. Long killing drives. Attack every uphill you see. Imagine yourself a cross country god or an ancient man hunting deer on foot. Whatever inspires you and push each effort until your lungs sear and your legs quiver. Then settle back into a jog until you are back in control enough to attack again. Go on like this until you can't go no more. Much like the moderate your pace between fast efforts on these days should be rather quick about as fast as you go on your fastest regular training runs.
How long? Until you FEEL you are finished. In future blogs we'll get into all sorts of structured fartleks but for this the pure fartlek you should not be wearing a watch or checking your distance. You are trying to communicate with your body. To tests its limits and to let it tell you how much is just right. How fast is fast, how long is long enough.
How fast? I do have a bit more direction for you here. DO NOT do just one speed! Mix it up. Your efforts should be all sorts of different distances and speeds. Vary from full out mad blitzes to just quick floating efforts, from short sprints to the next tree to long killing drives over significant distance. Really mix it up. Variety is the name of the game. Okay fartlek is really the name of the game but you know what I mean!
The fartlek in its pure wild form is not for everyone but it can be an amazing workout. You can never get the pace or effort wrong and you can develop a powerful connection with your body which is one thing you need to push it to great performances.
There are now dozens of different structures of fartlek that have become famous. It is a type of training that has been part of nearly all the great coaches, from Lydiard and Bowermann to Canova and Salazar, recommended schedules. I will do many posts on fartlek but for this one we will focus on it in its most pure and simple state. The original speed play.
Fartlek done in its most basic and pure form needs no timing, no measurement, no plan and no specific surface, though I would suggest the most beautiful you can find and some decent footing for fast running. You do not need a watch. Heck if you really want to get in touch with your forerunners and be a full purist you can go without shoes. I often would do this on rainy days sneaking on a golf course for a barefoot fartlek on the grass.
Effort? The name tells it all, speed play, it is a game! You can play hard or play easy. Go how you feel. I have heard fartlek referred to as running animal style it could just as easily be called running like a child. Lydiard and Canova both like it as a light workout to transition into harder more specific sessions but for others, Steve Monaghetti comes to mind, it was a serous part of their hardest training. I suggest you use it in three different ways.
First Very light. Need to get in some strides and loosen up after a hard effort or in the days prior to a major race. Just let it rip a few times on a light run on soft surfaces. Open up and fly along but when it starts to get hard simply let up and recover fully before moving fast again. Your jogs between the efforts on these days should be light and slow.
Second moderate. Perhaps you want to mix in one more workout in a week but know if it is a real killer you won't be able to do your more important focus sessions for the week. Perhaps you are early in a cycle of training or you are returning from a layoff. Fartlek is perfect. You can vary the speeds and distances as well as the total time running. Easily stopping long before you are fully exhausted. Best of all you have no watch to tell you you aren't running fast enough or long enough. Your breaks between the fast efforts on these days should be at the pace of a fast training run. Not super fast but not shuffling along either.
Finally Hard. Go get it run short savage bursts. Long killing drives. Attack every uphill you see. Imagine yourself a cross country god or an ancient man hunting deer on foot. Whatever inspires you and push each effort until your lungs sear and your legs quiver. Then settle back into a jog until you are back in control enough to attack again. Go on like this until you can't go no more. Much like the moderate your pace between fast efforts on these days should be rather quick about as fast as you go on your fastest regular training runs.
How long? Until you FEEL you are finished. In future blogs we'll get into all sorts of structured fartleks but for this the pure fartlek you should not be wearing a watch or checking your distance. You are trying to communicate with your body. To tests its limits and to let it tell you how much is just right. How fast is fast, how long is long enough.
How fast? I do have a bit more direction for you here. DO NOT do just one speed! Mix it up. Your efforts should be all sorts of different distances and speeds. Vary from full out mad blitzes to just quick floating efforts, from short sprints to the next tree to long killing drives over significant distance. Really mix it up. Variety is the name of the game. Okay fartlek is really the name of the game but you know what I mean!
The fartlek in its pure wild form is not for everyone but it can be an amazing workout. You can never get the pace or effort wrong and you can develop a powerful connection with your body which is one thing you need to push it to great performances.
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