FARTLEK IS UNSTRUCTURED FAST AND SLOW RUNNING

Even though I am no longer a competitive runner I still love to do a fartlek run most weeks. Basically, this means I want to do something a bit more intensive to test myself compared to my usual easy and steady runs, but at my own pace and effort. The point is that you will never do exactly the same work-out twice and this ‘freedom’ can really help you to get something done when mentally you don’t feel like training hard. Run on feel, and try to avoid timing the length of the efforts. Generally a fartlek is a solo session, but it doesn’t have to be. If you run with someone fairly evenly matched you can take it in turns surprising each other with a sudden surge or sprint.

This article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fartlek gives a good outline of the origin and history of fartlek as well as a list of suggested workouts. I must admit I think adding too much structure and planning into a fartlek partly defeats its purpose in my mind – although see my own examples below.  

Fartlek can be around a set course, or for a fixed length of time, or entirely as you feel. It can be in the town or countryside or a mixture of the two. It can even be around a track. Use landmarks and the topography, up hills, down hills, straights, gates, styles, lamp posts etc. to start and stop your efforts, and only use your watch to determine how long the session is in total.

Fartlek can be an easy workout with just some short faster strides at random, maybe even walking breaks, or an extremely hard workout of repeated intensive efforts including hills if they are on your route or a mixture of as many different types of running as you can fit in your allotted time. 

In terms of a planned training programme, I would recommend starting with lower intensity earlier in the base training period and increasing it gradually towards the pre-competition period with fartleks perhaps once every 2-3 weeks instead of a conventional repetition or interval session to give you a mental break.

Overall a more intensive fartlek workout is likely to include about 50% of the session or run time spent in ‘effort’. Watch the overall effort though. Fartlek is addictive and you can quickly develop a taste for pushing yourself harder and harder and just like a structured intensive training session you may over-train if you do them too hard too frequently.

Examples of fartlek for specific event training:

Cross country training: A fartlek on the grass playing fields or a park works really well in the winter months as a weekend session when you haven’t got a cross-country race and want a workout that allows you a bit of breathing space from that competitive training pressure. If possible use a local cross country course and aim for a similar overall workout time to your typical cross country race distance with similar warm-up and cool-down too. Try for a mix of short and longer duration effort and recovery times. A course with hills will help build specific leg and cardio-vascular strength. A few shorter faster efforts in a winter or spring cross country fartlek are great for maintaining some leg speed ready for the track season too. 

Track event training: Although not true fartlek in the sense that you control it yourself, pre-season coach controlled fartlek on playing fields or track involves the coach (or a friend) controlling your efforts at random with their whistle. The extra value of this is that you have to run hard when you least expect it, or when you really don’t want to. This can deliver excellent tactical race preparation but will also be an extremely hard session physically so should be used sparingly and not later than 10 days before a target race. This is particularly relevant to middle distance track racing if you are preparing for championship middle distance events where you may get that type of tactical race.