NASCAR Running

Topic: Interval Training
Key Words: Fartleks, Track, Church
Word Count: 610
Tomorrow Likely Topic: 203 Miles of Running

When I'm training for a marathon with my running group (the "Yellow Fever" group of Houston Fit ... I've never really liked being named after a disease), Tuesday is speed training day. The idea is simple: run hard for some time, run easy for some time, and repeat. This would be kind of boring if it didn't have a neat name in the running world; it's called a Fartlek. The high school Sophomore in me must point out that you pronounce it "fart"-"lick".

Fartlek. Say it, and try not to smile :)

The origins of fartleks are, as I understand them, Swedish (fatlek is Swedish for "speed play"). Some cool cats from Sweden were training in Colorado and folks noticed that they alternated between running real fast, and running real slow. Though they went real slow when going slow, they never went so slow as to walk. When race day came these cats turned out to be real fast when it mattered; they won their races and the newest rage in training was born. Soon runners everywhere were alternating between fast and slow running and doing a lot of giggling when they told their friends the name of what they were up.

The idea behind fartleking (I think I made up a word!) is that the fast part of the run pushes your body, makes it more efficient. The key, especially for distance runners, is actually the slow part. Your body must learn to recover during this slow phase, because another fast one is on the way. If your body gets real good at this, it can learn to recover in difficult times ... such as a slow mile 20 in a marathon. So ironically, running short distances, and doing so quickly, can be a real asset to marathoners. And obviously, it can be an asset in shorter races; I dropped two minutes off my 5K (3.1 miles) personal best after one Fall of doing fartleks.

I did these funny sounding runs at the Memorial Park asphalt track. I did 8 repeats of 2 minutes of hard running, followed by 1 minute of easy moving. Since the track is about a quarter mile, it was very NASCAR like ... two minutes of left turn, left turn, left turn, left turn, followed by a one minute pit stop! In some ways track running is rough, since it's on a fairly unforgiving surface, and tight turns can irritate your knees, but since I can do just more than one loop in two minutes, it gives me something visual to lock into; this seems to help me push harder.

As a side note, Tuesday night is normally church night ... the night I go to St. Lukes to play basketball. I told someone I was giving up the church for a while, and it just sounded wrong without the clarification about basketball. In the Fall I normally did the speed work and then went and played ball, but I think my church days (again, basketball .. forgive me Lord) may be over. B-Ball is more of a social event for me now, as I don't play in a league anymore, but that is actually what makes it hard to give up. Lately I just haven't been feeling the church like I used to, and it is rough on my body ... maybe with some time off I can enjoy it again. For now though ... no more church on Tuesday nights. Just fart licks.

Fund raising note: $25 dollar donation!

Take care.