Speed Work Guidelines

I’ll show you what interval workouts are best for the most popular race distances.
Here are some general guidelines:

• ➤ Aim for a total of 15 to 20 minutes of hard running in your workout. This range means that the shorter your intervals, the more you should do of them. Don’t do more than 25 minutes total of hard running in a single workout.
• For intervals that take longer than five minutes to complete, allow a recovery time of about 50 percent of the time it took you to complete the interval. For example, if you run a fast mile in eight minutes, recover for four minutes before running hard again.
• For intervals that take from three to five minutes to complete, allow a recovery of about 75 percent of the time it took you to complete the interval. For example, if you run a fast half-mile in 3:30, recover for 2:30 before running hard again.
• For intervals that take less than three minutes to complete, allow a recovery time that lasts roughly as long as it took you to complete the interval. For example, if you run a fast quarter-mile in 1:40, recover for 1:40 before running hard again.
• Have the workout planned before you start. If you make it up as you go along, you’re more likely to quit too early.
• Figure out what your goal pace for an interval is in terms of time per lap, and then try to hit that pce on each lap. For example, if you want to run each of your interval miles in eight minutes, try to run each lap as close to two minutes as possible.
• Your time from interval to interval shouldn’t vary by more than 10 seconds per mile. If you run two interval miles in 8:00 each, and then a third one in 8:30, you did the first two too quickly.

How fast to run depends on how long your intervals are. I’ll show you how to figure that pace for specific workouts in the next three chapters.
Some runners add variety to their interval workouts by doing a ladder, or varying the distance of the intervals. The name comes from the visual image of going up in distance, and then coming back down by the end of the workout. For example, you might run two quarters, and then a half-mile interval, and then a mile interval to finish the climb up the ladder. Then you would come back down as you went up, with a half-mile interval and two quarters.
Ladders can help to break up a workout psychologically. You can tell yourself, “OK, just one hard mile, and then they all get shorter the rest of the workout.” If you sometimes need to coax yourself into finishing your speed work, ladders can be helpful. In general, though, it’s better to stick with intervals of one distance so that you practice pushing yourself mentally as your fatigue increases. That’s certainly how it happens in races!