Excuse my fartlek

Part of the fun of working out is that you get to increase your vocabulary. You learn to "talk the talk" even if you ain't yet "walking the walk"--you can discuss negative splits (not a backwards leg bend, but going faster on the second half of a workout or race than the first half), PRs (not your old Public Relations class, but personal records--which you can track every day if you feel like it), bonk (this is not, like I always assumed, hitting someone on the head, but instead, hitting "the wall"--during a workout, feeling like you have lost all your energy), and my personal favorite, the fartlek.

Fartlek actually comes from two Swedish words, speed (fart) and play (lek). Leave it to the Swedes to have a word for speed that in English, is considered base bathroom humor. It's a method of training (usually running, but not always) where you interpose fast paced running sessions followed by normal or easy running portions, on and off, for a set period of time.

The difference between fartleks and intervals is that intervals are based on a certain period of time to do the fast pace, while fartleks are based on how you feel--i.e. run fast until you feel you shouldn't run fast anymore, then go slow for a while, then start up fast again when you feel you have recovered. Very Zen-like. Personally, I feel like I shouldn't run fast anymore after the first 10 seconds of running fast, which is probably why my coach gives me intervals rather than fartleks. Still, I like to THINK of them as fartleks so I can show off the word.

So I did intervals this morning on the track at the gym--a warm up period, followed by a timed interval of fast effort, followed by a timed interval of slower effort, for five times, then a cool down walk. I hadn't done intervals in about 45 days and was dreading it, but it wasn't all that bad. I enjoyed flying my feet faster for a change (telling the heart rate monitor to go fish) and stretching it out, although truthfully, the last 15 seconds of each fast interval were a bit of an oh, dear, this is never going to be over thinking thing. During the slower recovery periods the first minute or two I was really breathless, but then would recover nicely even while still running, and my heart rate would politely assume the correct position.

I chose the indoor track not to go around my heat acclimation route, but to try and keep the whining hamstring quiet by staying off of any possible inclines and downhills. It behaved marvelously for me during the session. It's not 100 percent healed; I can still hear it behind closed doors at times, but it's on the way.

I fueled with a whole wheat tortilla smeared with a teaspoon of peanut butter 20 minutes pre run, and then had a 100 calorie breakfast bar post run.

Tomorrow is an easy bike, and Sunday is a dad's day duathlon at White Rock. My spouse, daughter and I are running the mixed gender relay. Sarah will be the starter runner for 2 miles, Jim will bike the 10 miles around, and I will be the anchor leg running 2 miles as fast as I can in 95 degrees with 98 percent humidity. Afterwards a healthy but fun family breakfast at Cafe Brazil!