Fartlek

Fartlek sessions are my favourite type of training.  There's something about the word itself that appeals to the six year old in me.  If you've never come across it before it's Swedish for speed play.  The idea is you keep changing pace during the run, but at no point do you stop moving.  So maybe you run at an moderate pace to a landmark, then sprint for a few seconds, then jog to the next landmark.    

It's very simple to do, workouts never feel that hard but the constant change in pace - and accompanying heart rate - really boosts fitness very quickly.  And because you decide how fast you are going to run and for how long you are far less likely to suffer an injury than you would running formal interval sessions.  Plus you can run it on trails as well as the road or track, whereas interval sessions really need a predictable surface.

You can also have a lot of fun with it: 
- there's the letterbox version where you change pace after a certain number of letterboxes have been passed (good in a group where people take it in turns to call out a number from 3 to 10)
- the musical version where you speed up during the chorus of a song and jog during the verses 
- the pedestrian version - speed up every time you pass someone as if you are overtaking in a race
- or pyramids where you sprint for 15 seconds then jog for two minutes, you repeat this pattern of sprints and jogs but each time taking 15 seconds off the jogging time until it's sprint 15 seconds, jog 15 seconds, sprint 15 seconds.    

So many variations are possible that it's a workout I never get bored with.

Distance: 4.52 miles
Elevation gained: 32 metres

Sponsor me and help send Scouts on an adventure of a lifetime