Speed is great. But, without balance, strength, and (a little coordination), there’s only so far (and fast) you can go. As my good friend Adolfo Liu from Avanzare SF once said, ‘You can have a HUGE engine, but if your ‘frame’ is weak, breakdowns are almost inevitable.’
If you want to get faster, you’ve got to run faster. BUT, it’s important to take care of your ‘frame’ as well to insure your body can actually HANDLE running faster!
Our workout includes some ‘speed’, but it also includes some strengthening of the frame!
At a high level, you’ll be doing ‘5’ iterations/laps of a circuit defined as follows:
-‘Fartlek for a full lap.
Fartlek is defined as ‘speed play’. The beauty of fartlek is it’s incredibly flexible. You can run HARD for one minute and easy for another minute. You can run HARD for FIVE minutes and easy for two minutes. If you’re new to running ‘fast’, fartlek is a wonderful way to gradually segue into faster running as it’s highly flexible.
For the purposes of this workout, you’re running HARD on the straight segments of the track and EASY on the curves.
After doing one lap of fartlek, you will segue into drills designed to strengthen your ‘frame’!
-Strengthen the frame (aka-drills).
Each circuit is comprised of ‘4’ drills done for ’30’ seconds. Each circuit will be a bit different, but you can count on things like heel raises, squats, lunges, planks, burpees, and various other drills that strengthen your frame in big and small ways. BTW, ALL of the drills we do on Wednesday are drills you should be doing on your own a few times/week.
If you develop a strong frame, not only can you run better/stronger, you can reduce the chances of aggravations/injuries. Reduce the chances of aggravations/injuries, and you’re looking at more time on your feet which inevitably leads to better training!
-Fartlek & strengthen the frame FIVE times.
Five laps (1.25 miles) may not ‘sound’ like much, but you’re running 50% of this in a very high ‘quality’ manner. When you’re doing ‘quality’ work (fartlek, intervals, tempo, hills, etc), you don’t necessarily need a lot of it to get a high quality workout, which is part of the beauty of this one! AND, don’t discount 2 challenging minutes of drills between each lap.
Once you’ve caught your breath, you’ll run 1-2 easy laps to cool down. BOOM!
-What else? Build Fatigue Resistance.
Not only does this workout help develop speed and strengthen your frame, it also helps build fatigue resistance! Part of becoming a better, faster runner involves building ‘fatigue resistance’. The only way to get better at resisting fatigue is to ‘gently’ and ‘gradually’ expose yourself to it. For those of you wanting to become more fatigue resistant, this workout is designed to (gently) ‘simulate’ some of the mental and physical fatigue you may encounter in the latter stages of a tough run or race!
If done consistently, exposing yourself to the stresses of hard (and fast) running will increase your tolerance and aptitude for tolerating said stress.
One of the things I LOVE about this workout is you get a lot of ‘bang for the buck’. You’re only working for about 30-35 minutes, but between the quality work, the strengthening, and fatigue resistance work, you’re getting a LOT out of this one!