For our holiday season special, we’ve got 2:30-marathoner Becky Wade back to bring us a fun track session that provides a nice combo of interval- and endurance-style training.

WHAT?

4 sets of:
[4x 400m @ your 10k-5k race pace
100m jog float]
800m jogs between sets

Terrain: Track or measurable pathway.

Feels: The Christmas dinner burner!

This workout has 6.4k worth of work, so we’re definitely ramping up the volume compared to our other recent TempoFit Workout of the Weeks. So, we’re slowing up the pace a little particularly at the start where you’ll aim for 10k race for the 400s. As you warm into it you may decide to increase to your 5k race pace for the final 1-2 sets.

WHY?

As we explained last week, Becky uses this sort of workout to create a nice bridge from faster track work to the more endurance-focused sessions of half and full marathon training.

The 100m floats allow you to hold a slightly faster pace than you might otherwise—letting you get through more quantity at that 10k to 5k race pace.

HOW?

Where last week we were completing a mile (1600m) in each set, this week we’re completing 2k in each set (including the 100m floats). So, be sure to keep track of the set times as well as the individual 400m splits, as this will tell you how your recovery floats are going as the workout heats up.

MEET BECKY WADE-FIRTH

Becky Wade grew up in Dallas, Texas, and now bases herself at Boulder, Colorado, where she trains as one of America’s leading half and full marathoners.

Interestingly, she started her running journey at high school as a sprinter, and then transitioned into longer form of the sport in her latter years of school and went to become multiple all-American at Rice University.

After graduating college, she embarked on an epic running adventure, visiting 22 countries around the world that all had a history of running. That year-long, solo adventure lead to her writing a book called Run the World which captures the rich diversity and similarities that exist across running cultures from Japan to Europe, and Ethiopia to New Zealand.

She now writes for Runner’s World and keeps a great blog here. She has represented the USA twice and was supposed to put on the stars and stripes again in 2020 at the World Half Marathon Champs but USA ended up not sending a team due to Covid-19.

Becky Wade’s PRs (a.k.a. PBs) as at Dec 2020:
10k = 32:32
Half Marathon = 1:09:40
Marathon = 2:30:41

Follow Becky on Instagram