Training, Planning and Running the DW Race

I went for Saturday training with my dad again and this weekends training word is Fartlek. It’s a training method devised for the Swedish cross country team in the 1930’s. It means speed play, and is a variation on interval training. Basically you go for a run, then at some point you increase the speed to elevate the cardio to bursting point and then slow it down to a normal run to recover. It was quite good fun, hard work but enjoyable. We ran for 28 minutes around a route that was in the region of 3 miles.

I hadn’t planned to do anything on Sunday, but after spending the afternoon at a barbeque with fantastic weather I decided to take the bike out for a ride. I didn’t really plan to do anything to exotic, just a nice 10ish mile route that I have taken a few times. I am already getting faster as my muscles get used to cycling, I can sustain a higher gear for longer and spend more time in top gear on straight roads.

Monday morning before work I chucked in a quick half an hour run. I was pressed for time as I didn’t decide to go running until I only had half an hour left before I had to get ready for work, so I chose a short route of 3.7 miles. I had half a mind thinking about Saturdays training with my dad and tried to push myself with this fartlek method. I would pick a couple of lamp posts and run flat out between them, and then run at normal pace to recover.
I don’t know if it was this fartlek running or the fact that I was running to a deadline, but I clocked in a healthy average speed of 6.9mph.