Plans, paces & PBs 20 Minute Fartlek Run
A simple 20 minute fartlek run is: 5 minutes easy, then 5 rounds of 1 minute hard and 1 minute easy, followed by 5 minutes easy. That gives you a complete session without needing a track or complicated watch programming.
Run the hard minutes at a controlled 5K effort rather than a sprint. The easy minutes should be gentle enough for your breathing to settle before the next surge.
If you are new to faster running, begin with 3 rounds and use the remaining time for easy running. If you are more experienced, keep all 5 rounds and make the final two the strongest without turning them into an all-out finish.
If you have time, add a separate 5 to 10 minute easy warm-up and cool-down. If 20 minutes is all you have, keep the opening and closing 5 minutes genuinely easy.
Fartlek Training Sessions
Named after the Swedish for ‘Speed Play’, the fartlek training session is a less structured and largely more creative way to do speed interval training. They can faciliate great improvements in endurance and strength, as well as help improve your speed and race awareness. The beauty of fartlek training is that with the variations in recovery and intensity that these sessions can provide, they burn calories and increase your oxygen capacity training your body to recover faster making you fitter.
The origins of the ‘fartlek’ training as a training method date back to the 1930’s where it was formalised to provide a less structured approach to that of basic high intensity interval training. The more rigid and disciplined approach of speed interval training sees the athlete run for a predefined distance and rest for a predefined amount of time, for example, a 10 x 400 meters round a track with 1 minute recovery between laps is a sound speed interval training session.
The Fartlek training approach is a little different. It’s prescribes that the athlete runs for a given time (not distance) and has less structured recovery periods that may likely vary in length and speed. The terrain, duration and intensity of the Fartlek training session can be determined by the runner and this variability that it provides ensures that fartlek sessions are often enjoyable and add great value to a runners 5k training plan.
Another big plus for fartlek training is that they can largely be carried out anywhere; a fartlek training session could be run along the beach maybe between various watch towers, or high up in the mountains between trees , or even in Milton Keynes between roundabouts.
There is always a way when it comes to a fartlek.
Benefits of Fartlek Training
Fartlek training is all about increasing your speed over a sustained period of running by improving your lactate threshold. This is the intensity around which lactate begins to accumulate faster than your body can clear and reuse it.
Lactate is not simply a waste product or the cause of next-day soreness. It can be reused as fuel, while the burning and slowing you feel during very hard running are part of a wider build-up of fatigue.
Training your body to run more efficiently at a strong but controlled effort can raise the pace you can hold before that fatigue builds rapidly.
To perform to your potential, you will be looking to run at a level close to, but not over, your lactic threshold. Much below and you’ll be left feeling you could have given more. And above, you’ll be fighting jelly legs and have nothing left in the tank.
Double Bubble
Without blinding you with science, lactate produced during harder running can be reused as fuel by working muscles and other tissues. A fartlek session helps your body become better at producing, clearing and reusing it while the pace changes. Train hard enough to create the adaptation, recover well enough to benefit from it; it’s a win win.
Fartlek Training Examples
The following are example fartlek training sessions, which can be beneficial for a variety of distances and range of athletes (remember to warm-up and down for ten minutes before and after the session):
Traffic Light Fartlek Training
Run 30 seconds hard – 90 seconds easy – 60 seconds moderate – 60 seconds easy – 90 seconds hard – 30 seconds easy. Repeat 4 times.
The Street Light/ Lamp Post Run
For those who don’t have a watch or just want to try something a bit wacky, try the lamp post run where you can mix it up running hard, moderately and slowly between sets of lamp-posts. Substitute lamp posts for trees if you live near a park.
Hero to Zero
From zero to five minutes, run at a comfortable, normal pace. At the five-minute mark, increase your speed for one minute. Drop back to your normal speed until you hit the 10 minute mark. Repeat your hero bursts on the 10, 15, 20, and 25 minute markers.
Watson Fartlek Training
Stride hard for 4 minutes with 1 minute jog recovery – repeat x 8
Saltin Fartlek Training
Stride hard for 3 minutes with 1 minute jog run recovery. Repeat x 6
Astrand Fartlek Training
Max effort for 75 seconds, 150 secs jog run, max effort for 60 seconds, 120 seconds jog run. Repeat x 3
Gerschler Fartlek Training
Stride hard for 30 seconds, jog 90 seconds. repeat with 15 second decreases in recovery jog e.g. 30-90, 30-75, 30-60, 30-45, 30-30, 30-15 and 30-15-30. Repeat x 3
Hill Fartlek Training
Select a 2 mile hilly course. Run hard up all hills twice before moving to the next hill, jog run between hills. Repeat x 3
10 minute warm down jog
Do not select hills which are too long in duration or too steep
Fartlek sessions are best suited to athletes looking to develop their own fitness, rather than a new runner embarking on their new running career. Fartlek training sessions are great for relieving the monotony of interval training on a track or treadmill and can really help to dampen down the mental fatigue which can flame from prolonged periods of more structured interval training.