H31-

What's your training look like overall?

I'm usually training for distances longer than a half-mary, but all the training plans I've seen incorporate weekly runs at multiple paces (tempo runs, general aerobic, recovery, etc.)

What you might need is a "generally accepted training plan" to follow that incorporates these paces, as it'll have training that'll increase your speed (VO2Max) to improve your overall performance.

Check out the "Mainstream Racing" forum for suggestions along those lines.

Regards,

kestrou

I would agree that we definitely need lots more info.

How may miles per week?

Current training pace? And current goal pace?

How long is your base phase? Why are you doing speedwork/peak work now when your goal race is in March?

You should almost never feel like you are unable to do the same workout again. It sounds as though you are doing speedwork more than once or twice a week. I would bet your current mileage does not support this type of training. And with a goal race 5 monthas away, you should stick to basebuilding right now. If you have been running for years on end, a tempo run a week might be ok, but interval.fartlek stuff is for peaking. you don't want to peak now.

Read Daniel's Running Formula. It will explain all of this stuff, plus more.



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quote:<HR>Originally posted by hopper31:
Good morning. I come with a question of course. When I am running doing fartlek training I feel as though I am cutting my self short. Most of my runs are done at the same speed so I am training for this 1/2 marathon in March and am trying to incorporate running with getting faster

. How am I supposed to do fartlek when If I am going four miles that feels like it takes everything out of me. I guess my true question is should I do fartlek like on off days and just do a mile or so of fartlek training? I am told that fartlek doesn't need to be any longer than 30 min.

I am a 31 y/o female.<HR>

Hopper (grass?):

Doing fartlek for only a mile would probably not going to cut it. It would take at least a mile to warm-up. But I don't see any reason why not be able to do farlek "type" workout on your longer runs of 4-mile or so. Find undulating trail or golf course; go by how long you run totally rather than going after mileage--say, go and run for 45 minutes, gradually working your way up to an hour or more.

Now understand the meaning of "fartlek"--it's a Swedish word for "Speed Play"; so you are totally inhibited with structure; go strictly by how you feel; not with watch or garmin or whatever. Just 2 days ago, I hopped on a treadmill; I usually increase the speed quite nicely but this particular day, I was feeling sluggish. I pushed the pace up in the first 25 minutes only to find out that I was actually "pushing" it so I backed down. Well, what do you know; after 40+ minutes, I finally loosened up and started to get faster naturally. Now that's what you want. Listen to your body and speed up here and there; slow down for recovery and DO THAT UNTIL YOU RECOVER!!! Another advantage of doing fartlek this way is that you're going up and down the hill. Don't try to run up the hill FAST but HARD. Concentrate on correct running techniques and feel the legs do the work. Stride down the hill FAST to work on your leg speed; then slow down to the jog for recovery... This is the way fartlek should be run.

At your level right now (4 mile being a long run???), I don't see any reason why not do it this way. Once you get up to more mileage, you might want to distinguish long run from fartlek but right now, why not!? I took my girl yesterday for a 2-hour run. It so happened that the course we ran was a very rugged cross country course and there were plenty of ups and downs. I'll bet she hates me for that (and on this one hill, she did tell me that the did!). Naturally, we slowed here and there for recovery. Our legs were absolutely shot at the end of the run but that was one **** of a run. We don't do it this way all the time, but there's nothing wrong with doing it this way either. Of course, if you're a beginning runner, trying to get it up to 2-hours, this is not the way to go about...