Licking Some Farts

... or as normal people call them... "fartleks."

I mixed up last Monday's long run by adding in some fartleks. I used my "standard" fartlek workout (a version from Coach Jen all those years ago) of efforts of 3 mins, 2 mins, 4 mins, 1 min, and 5 mins. Then the "rest" of easy running between are either half the effort (so 90 sec after the 3 min effort, then 1 min easy after the 2 min effort), but sometimes I round all the "half minute" easy running up to the nearest minute, which is what I did this time. And then I repeat it. So it looked like this: 3 min hard, 2 min easy, 2 min hard, 1 min easy, 4 min hard, 2 min easy, 1 min hard, 1 min easy, 5 min hard. Then a 3 min easy break before starting it over again. It sounds hard to rememeber, but it's just jumping back-and-forth (lower then higher then lower etc.) between 1 and 5 minutes of efforts.

I did this workout back in April where I did the "proper" rests of exactly half of the previous effort, and I did it again in June where I rounded up the half-minutes just for a little more rest. And I did the version that gave me a bit more rest this time as well.

When I was done, my splits looked like this last week (with bold being the efforts, the normal text being the easy running, and the parentheses noting the per mile pace):

[My Garmin takes 0.5 mile splits, so "longer" efforts are 2 numbers added up with the first being 0.5 mile.]

3:00 (6:01) = 0.50
2:00 (7:59) = 0.25
2:00 (5:45) = 0.35
1:00 (7:34) = 0.13
2:54 (5:49) + 1:06 (5:31) = 0.70
2:00 (8:05) = 0.25
1:00 (5:25) = 0.19
0:59 (8:04) = 0.12
3:04 (6:10) + 1:56 (5:38) = 0.84

2:59 (8:21) = 0.36

2:55 (5:51) + 0:05 (6:41) = 0.51
1:59 (8:02) = 0.25
2:00 (5:40) = 0.35
0:59 (8:03) = 0.12
3:05 (6:11) + 0:55 (5:49) = 0.66
1:59 (8:33) = 0.23
1:00 (5:17) = 0.19
0:59 (8:24) = 0.12
3:03 (6:07) + 1:57 (5:28) = 0.86

The first "set" ended up being 0.02 miles longer than last time I did this in June (everything equal or farther than last time except the final 5:00 effort was 0.03 shorter), and it was 0.02 longer than when I did it in April as well. So this workout started as the fastest all year.

And the second "set" was even faster: I was 0.11 miles farther this time compared to June (being a bit faster in EACH of the 5 efforts), and I was 0.08 farther than April's version of this workout. So NOTICEABLY faster this time! Sweet!

Out-and-back route showing the pace changing on the way "back."
The efforts are PRETTY visible. (You can sometimes see the
different pace "under" the pace shown which was the way "out.")


All 10 efforts are pretty visible here, but the first 5 min effort has a
slow-up in the middle which was climbing the biggest hill of the efforts.

I need to keep mixing up my workouts like this! I starting doing this better in June and July with the shorter track workouts. I think it's good for me to train specifically for a few races just for the sake of breaking up the ordinary. Change is good.