Lots of things have been
covered here over the past semester, and it's always such a cool thing to watch
all of your hard work come together by the end of the season! There's no better
feeling than knowing you accomplished all you set out to do during a hard
running season. Knowing that feeling of fulfillment is amazing because you know
that if you can survive a challenging season of exerting everything you have
almost four times a week, you can probably do anything. Running is good
for you, and when incorporated into an overall balanced lifestyle it really can
go a long way toward making you healthy, confident, inspired, and
motivated. Running is about pushing yourself.
Yes, you can build yourself up to a certain fitness level and be comfortable
maintaining it, but that’s not really the point. I think it’s exciting to see
how far you can push your own body, seeing how far you can go. Breaking records is what I'm all about. It makes me feel almost superhuman. Inserting speedwork and occasional races
into your running routine is all part of the fun too! I think of them as just another challenge, a metaphorical hurdle if you will. I started this blog to share my passions with others who also love running or those who are just curious as to what I do. I
wanted to challenge myself to make the ideas that I'd been thinking of about running relevant to my own life and to be able to share them with others as well. All runners deal with philosophy, whether it be training
philosophy, racing philosophy, or the more basic questions like how does
running fit with my own philosophy? And what does the fact that I run say about
my philosophy of living? We've all got answers to these questions, though they
rarely are discussed because it's so personal and specific to each person. Personally, one of the reasons I love to run is that it gets ideas firing. Running and philosophy are a natural
fit. One of the greatest things about being a runner is that the activity
creates this sort of unique space of intellectual freedom. As my body moves, so does my mind. So I run. My life has kind of sucked lately, and there's been no better way to hash things out and compartmentalize my thoughts better than through running.
Alright, say it out loud, laugh, and get it out of your system. Even if you've never done a fartlek workout before (or don't even know what it is) here's your chance to give it a try!
Picking up the pace once a week goes a long way toward making you faster. I've covered a lot of speed workouts already, but sometimes racing around a track, keeping your eye on a stop watch, or sprinting up hills can get boring. Another alternative is a fartlek. Interestingly enough, fartlek translates into "speed play" in Swedish, where the concept apparently originated (my team always asked why of all things it could be called a fart-lek). Fartleks are a free-flowing format in which you run faster for however long or short you want to. Of all the workouts one could possibly choose from, fartleks definitely come in handy. The aim in completing a fartlek workout can be compared to that of interval training. The purpose of these workouts is to develop speed by running for short distances at a speed significantly higher than the normal strong race pace. Fartleks are similar to interval training in that short fast runs alternate with slow running or jogging recovery intervals. However, with fartleks the running isn't done on a track. In fact, it's done on the road or in a park or some other place you desire. At my high school, we used a loop in a certain neighborhood as a fartlek course, where it was a simple circle with different hill elevations and long and short stretches of distance. The key to doing fartleks are to pace yourself. With each repetition, you really need to be running the same times each time you run. I'll lay out two different fartlek workouts that are both efficient and helpful in your workout.
Block Party:
In your neighborhood, use blocks as your "track." You can go around the block or do an out-and-back. Start at a slow pace for five to 10 steps, then gradually increase the pace for 20 to 50 steps, then run at race pace (but not all out) for one full block. Start with two or three fartlek segments and build to six. Walk for one or two minutes between each faster section.
Running Landmark:
Pick a telephone pole, mailbox, stop sign, or anything up ahead and run to it. You can choose one thing (all telephone poles, for example) or multiple landmarks to create varying lengths of speed segments. On each segment, gradually pick up the pace until you're running fast but not all out. For the last 20 steps, hold the pace, but focus on relaxing your body and allowing momentum to take over. Walk or jog for half the distance of your repeat, then spot your next landmark and take off again. Continue for a total of 10 to 15 minutes, before running an easy five to 10 minutes to cool down.
A Fartlek Example!
Enjoy!
Ah yes, the dreaded hill workouts. In my opinion, there aren't many workouts that I dislike more than hills. BUT! They get the job done. Hills are in the category of strength training, where running these reps on a hill builds up your endurance and power for a race. If you can run up a hill, you can survive a race. In hill running, the athlete is using their body weight as a resistance to push against, so the driving muscles from which their leg power is derived have to work harder. The technique to aim for is a "bouncy" style where the athlete has a good knee lift and maximum range of movement in the ankle. Hill workouts in general are great because they help develop power and muscle elasticity, improve stride length and frequency, improves running form, and develops control, stabilization, and controlled speed. This week I'll touch upon three different types of hill workouts, including short length, middle, and long distance.
Short hills are those which take about 30 seconds to completely run up. It doesn't have to be incredibly steep, but there definitely should be a significant incline. Because they're so short, short hills are the ones where the runner should really focus on improving their form: pumping their arms at a 90 degree angle and driving their knees up and down. Essentially short hill repetitions should be done between eight to ten times. Moreover, these hills should be between 150-200 meters long. Once again, these reps should be done at around 30 seconds.
Mid length hills take between 30 to 90 seconds to run up. This is the length of hill is a good distance for the middle-distance runner, because it combines the benefits of the short hills with the stresses on local muscular endurance. These are the most competitively ran types of hills because they're basically the perfect length for a quality team workout. They're ran fast. Because of this, it's important to develop a long-stride, high- knee lift type of form. This exerts the most power and carries over best in a race. With medium length hills, you can do six to eight runs of 45 seconds, followed by some 10 second sprints on a steeper hill. A more challenging workout is to do 12 to 15 runs of about 70 seconds (the equivalent of interval training).
A long hill is one which takes from 90 seconds to three minutes plus.Normally, I run long hills at the beginning of the running season to build a quality base for strength training, but long hills can also be done as a pre-meet workout to really tire out the body for the upcoming race. Now I know that sounds bad, but putting your body through this type of workout before a race makes you that much stronger afterwards, so it works out. They are particularly good for the cross country or road runner who is running distances of 10,000 meters and upwards. A session of, say eight three minutes, with a run back of four or five minutes will make a good hard workout.
I hope you enjoy these hill workouts and try not to despise them as much as I do! I mean, six years and eighteen seasons can really make you hate hills sometimes. They're quality workouts and you really do feel great after you complete them!
