Workout of the Week: Pyramid Fartlek

Fartlek? What’s not to love? This isn’t a traditional fartlek in that it is structured, where a fartlek would ordinarily be very spontaneous. But for people like me who can’t handle spontaneity in their runs, this is a great one! It’s also great if you struggle with the constant pace of a tempo run because this will give you the same training benefit but it has built in recovery periods.

You run each interval (in minutes) fast and then you have a jogging recovery for 1 minute between each interval. So it would be:

2:00 Fast

1:00 Recovery

3:00 Fast

1:00 Recovery

4:00 Fast

1:00 Recovery

6:00 Fast

1:00 Recovery

4:00 Fast

1:00 Recovery

3:00 Fast

1:00 Recovery

2:00 Fast

1:00 Recovery

 

So it will take you a total of 31:00 to complete.

Ideally you want the fast intervals to be faster in the shorter intervals than they would be in the longer intervals – you are aiming for something that you are going to be able to sustain for the whole interview and have a jogging recovery, rather than a walking recovery. This can take awhile to adjust to and figure out what your pace should be.

If you are newer to running – you can use an interval like (2,3,4,3,2) until you build up your endurance a bit more.

Running coaching is available through our Far and Fast programs, or you can sign up for one of our custom plans.