Fartleks

AM: 43 min :: 6+M
PM: 1:29 :: 15+M (10 x 3on/2off)

File this one under "Blessing In Disguise". The plan today was to do 16-20 x 400 with 25 sec recovery. As it is spring break at the UofM, the Fieldhouse has reduced hours. When I checked the schedule last week I'm positive it said that the track would be open until 8 pm tonight. But apparently I read it wrong and they only had lunchtime hours. Good thing I double checked before warming up over there.

So I knocked around a couple of options. The track at Minnehaha Academy (across the street from our house) looked pretty clear the other day, but I didn't know if it was clear all the way around. Also someone has marked out every 200m on a stretch of the River Rd so I could have done my 400s there. In the end, taking into account how I was feeling (not the best) and the wind factor, I decided to do a fartlek. Fartleks are the best when you don't want the pressure of running a certain time for a distance. Also, in my opinion, running hard on the track is easier than running hard on the road. So this would be good practice for the race Sunday.

So I headed out from work on West River Rd towards downtown. I got off the River Rd up by 4th St N and made my way through downtown (at rush hour, nice) over to the Cedar Lake Trail. Its so nice to be able to run bike trail pretty much the whole way. After warming up for 30 min (4.75M) I started my sets of 3 min hard, 2 minutes easy. Its much easier for me to start out a fartlek workout since I'm running by feel rather than pace. That said, the pace still felt pretty quick. I made my way over to Isles/Calhoun/Harriet and back home along the Minnehaha trail. I only really had to interrupt intervals twice (50th st and Portland Ave). My last hard interval ended just as I passed the tennis courts at Lake Nokomis. I "jogged" the rest of the way home, surprised to find that I was still running 6:10 pace during the cooldown.

I like farleks. I should do them more often.

Two rest days coming up and Human Race on Sunday. Good luck to Andy at the Shamrock Shuffle (Madison).

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