Fartlek: Not an Intestinal Disorder

Some runners thrive on track workouts. They love the precision and the ability to objectively compare their workouts from week to week. A lot of runners get burned out when they do speed work on the track frequently, however. They just don’t like going around and around in circles. Also, many runners don’t have easy access to a track, or they have to train when it’s dark, or the track is covered with snow. How can these runners get in their fast running?
They can do fartlek. That’s not what you do on a run after having a burrito; it’s a Swedish word that translates as “speed play.” Fartlek workouts are done away from the track. Many runners prefer them because the change in scenery makes them less mentally grinding, and they find that they can concentrate of running fast.
Fartleks can be a lot less structured than speed work on the track. You might plan a fartlek on your usual five-mile course. After running easily for a mile, you might run hard to that telephone pole way down the street, and then jog easily until the end of the next block, and then pick up the pace again until the school, and so on until you had a mile left in your run, when you would run easy the rest of the way home as your cooldown. Some runners make fartleks more structured. They might head out on one of their loops and, after warming up, spend the bulk of their run alternating running hard for two minutes with running easy for two minutes.
Runners who don’t have access to a track often use this approach. (It helps to have an alarm on your watch for this type of workout.) This approach is also good when the weather is bad, and you know it would be hard to reach your usual times on the track. In this situation, do a fartlek on the roads and get in a good workout without the weather-induced slower times bumming you out.
Doing fartleks on the road is a good choice if you’re going to be running road races with hills in them. If you do all of your fast running on the track, then you might not be able to tackle the uphills in races as well. But if you’re alternating running hard for three minutes with running slow for two minutes on a road course, then you’ll go over more varied terrain. Sometimes, you might start running hard at the base of a hill. Or your recovery jog might end when you’re halfway down a hill. You’ll learn how to keep running strongly off of the flat.
Fartleks are a safer way to run fast on hills than what some runners do, which is a series of intervals of running fast up a hill, and then jogging down to recover. Sure, this workout is very effective, but it also increases your risk of injury. If you want to work on your hill running ability, do fartleks on the road, and do your long runs on hilly courses.