Hit the trails, hit the hills and get those wheels ready to move! This fartlek workout is three sets of progressively faster, but shorter, efforts that give you the freedom to explore paces from 10k steady up to mile effort speed.

WHAT?

Fartlek Session

3 sets of: 3min, 2min, 1min, 30secs @ 10k to mile race effort
1min recovery jogs between efforts
3:30 recovery jogs between sets

Terrain: Scenic, undulating trails (not too technical under foot).

For each of the three sets you’ll start at around about 10k race effort, then crank up to about 5k effort for the 2min blocks, 3k effort for the 1min blocks and mile effort for the 30-second blasters at the end.

A great chance to practice back-ending the effort levels and exploring the full range of paces from steady to fast.

WHY?

Getting faster and running progressively shorter reps throughout a workout always seem to feel right. It also prepares you nicely for a race situation where you should start reasonably comfortably and then push into ever-greater levels of pain from there!

This week’s workout takes through a wide range of paces, and with the combo of the hills from the fartlek trails you’ll find, we’ll be laying some great ground work to head into a block of hill training which is coming up next week by the way!

HOW?

Be sure to choose terrain that isn’t too mountainous and make sure things are predictable underfoot—nothing too technical. You’ll be running fast sections of this workout so make sure it’s safe to do so for those sections.

Read this week’s Thought for the Week.