Fartlek Workouts for Runners - Simple Sessions to Make You Faster
Do you fartlek? The Kenyans, including Eluid Kipchoge, certainly do.
But let me back up a bit, maybe it’s best if I explain a little first …
Fartlek is a Swedish term that means “speed play” and was popularized by Swedish Olympian and master-coach Gosta Holmer. Holmer coached Gundar Hagg and Arne Andersson to within less than 2 seconds of the magical 4-minute mile as far back as the 1940s. Both set world mile records, with Hagg’s being the fastest at 4:01.4 until Roger Bannister’s recording-breaking run in 1954. Fartlek is a way of training that involves mixing in a variety of speeds within a single continuous run.
The original idea was to make speed training more enjoyable for runners. Instead of grinding away lap after lap on the track, they could go off on a relaxed run through the Swedish forests and essentially make up the pace changes as they went along. After an easy start to warm up, they might charge up a hill, run a few sprints, ease off on the pace for a while, or even add in 2–3km at a steady pace before easing back down. The potential variety was endless and helped keep runners from getting stale or overtrained.
Hagg and Andersson had tremendous success with it and soon others began to pick up the idea, including the legendary Arthur Lydiard, who encouraged his runners to use it as gentle speedwork during the base training season.
The beauty of fartlek is that you can do anything you want, from 100m sprints to a 5km tempo session all within a single run. Fartlek runs can improve your speed, aerobic endurance, leg strength, and pace judgment all in a single, relatively low-stress workout.
As time went on, coaches and runners began to add a more pre-defined plan to the workout, but fartlek is still conducted away from the track on footpaths, trails, and roads.
If you’re looking for ideas, here are three common fartlek sessions used by runners around the world today. Try them for yourself and see what you enjoy the most. And don’t be afraid to build your own fartlek session based on these ideas. Fartlek is supposed to be athlete-driven and spontaneous. The only rule is that there are no rules.
Make sure you warm up for each of these sessions, with 10–15 minutes of easy jogging and any dynamic stretching or drills you desire, and cool down afterwards with 5–10 minutes of easy jogging.
1. Minutes
The concept behind the “minutes” workout is simple.
Simply alternate one minute fast (approximately 5km race pace) with one minute at your regular easy run pace. You can start with as little as 5 reps and slowly build up to as many as 15 or 20.
The whole workout can be done as a continuous run, including warmup and cool down.
A sneaky good way to increase the intensity and benefit of this session is to ensure the recovery minutes stay at a decent pace. A great goal to aim for is to run the fast minutes at 5km race pace and the ‘slow’ minutes at roughly marathon pace. This teaches your body to clear lactate from your muscles while still running at a solid pace.
This will actually give you a better session than, say, running the fast minutes at mile pace and the slow ones at a very slow jog. It takes a little practice and pace judgment to get it right, but this is a very beneficial and enjoyable session when training for all events from 5km to the marathon.
2. Mona Fartlek
This workout was popularized by Australian marathoner Steve Moneghetti, the bronze medallist at the 1997 World Championships who had a lifetime marathon best of 2:08:14.
Mona fartlek is very similar to the minutes workout, in that you alternate fast sections around 5km race pace with equal time easier runs to recover. The difference is that there are varying intervals involved.
Mona fartlek goes as follows:
2 reps of 90 seconds fast, 90 seconds easy.
4 reps of 60 seconds fast, 60 seconds easy.
4 reps of 30 seconds fast, 30 seconds easy.
4 reps of 15 seconds fast, 15 seconds easy.
The workout is performed as a continuous run with a warmup and cooldown. The fast sections and recovery sections each add up to 10 minutes. A great way to run this session is to make it a continuous one-hour run, with the first 20 minutes as a warmup jog, 20 minutes for the workout itself, and a 20-minute cool-down jog.
The benefits of Mona fartlek are similar to that of the ‘minutes’ workout. Keeping the recovery sections at a steady pace provides for an excellent workout and benefits runners training for distances of 5km to the marathon.
3. Kenyan Fartlek
And finally, we get to the aforementioned Mr. Kipchoge, the former marathon world record holder, two-time Olympic marathon champion and the only human to have run under 2 hours for the marathon.
Kipchoge and most of the major Kenyan running camps meet weekly for a fartlek workout. These are usually spirited affairs with dozens of runners all starting together and charging off at the start. The strongest hang on till the end, the others do what they can and then either stop or drop off the pace significantly.
The typical Kenyan fartlek follows one of 3 patterns:
1 min fast, 1 minute jog— up to 25 reps.
2 minutes fast, 1 minute jog— up to 17 reps.
3 minutes fast, 1 minute jog — up to 13 reps.
I do not recommend starting with this many reps if you are mortal. Figure out what you can do to start and build up gradually until you reach a comfortable level. Keep in mind, this is not intended as a killer workout, it should be challenging, but you should finish knowing you could have done a couple more repetitions if needed.
The benefits of these sessions are similar to doing an interval session on the track, without the stress of trying to hit a particular time or pace. You run by feel at a level that leaves you pleasantly fatigued but not exhausted.
Give one or all of these sessions a try — you’ll be a faster and happier runner for it!
Please feel free to leave me a question or comment. With over 40 years of running experience, I’ve seen it all. What other topics would like me to cover? What problems can I help you with?
Cheers,
Dan.