If you’re not familiar with the term ‘fartlek’, it’s a Swedish term that loosely translates as ‘speed play’.
Fartlek qualifies as speedwork. But, it’s perhaps the most ‘lighthearted’ and ‘fun’ of all ways one can address their ‘need for speed’.
On Thursday, we’re FARTLEKING! The track will not be available to us (as a high school football game is booked), so we’ll use the ‘upper track’ which is roughly 600 meters (1.5 laps). Here’s a link to the loop course map….
After a generous warmup, we’ll segue into fartleking. You’ll be running EASY on the curved segments and HARD on the straight segments.
Your level of effort on the straight segments will increase as this workout progresses until you’re sprinting by the FINAL fartlek loop.
I’d generally recommend between 4-6 fartlek loops. This should give you an opportunity to ‘shift gears’ a few times and play around with a variety of paces before going for broke on the last loop.
Once you’re done fartleking, run an easy cooldown lap, do a little self massage, stretch, and segue into happy hour at Kezar Pub! 😉