Fartleks and Appreciating the Warm-up

Packing up my apartment is an overwhelming MESS!!! Ahh! It’s ok… I am making some progress…

I vow never to move in or hang as many things as I did last time until I am SURE I am staying for at least 2 years… total rookie mistake!

Friday’s Fartlek Workout= success!!

It was so fun mixing up my run a bit! Don’t worry, for all those thinking I am a hypocritical runner who can’t keep her promises to herself (or blog world) when I said I was going to only partake in fun runs and not be competitive– I said I was going to take the fall/winter to heal my body and work on getting healthy, and that is still my #1 priority!! I am doing my runs without any regard for my time or speed!

I was wondering if a speed workout was a good idea, but when I thought about the reasons why I wanted to do it (fun, mix it up a bit!) and that 0% of it was to be competitive or prove something, I decided that it was perfectly great for me to do fartleks! I am very happy with this decision, and seeing how good I felt on them just lends further justification to my Operation Get Healthy!!

Anyways here is what I did! —-> I followed exactly the Workout that Janae from The Hungry Runner Girl did last week!! I loved it!

20 min warm-up @ 7.31 pace

8x 1 min HARD (with 1 min jogging recovery in between) over all 6.41 pace

21 min cool-down @ 7.40 pace

Total= 8 miles

Anyways, (cue awesome transition), on to other topics!

I used to neverrr warm-up.

My least favorite thing in high school xc practice was the warm up. I always felt awful with heavy legs and I swear my breathing was so ragged and labored, despite how slow we were going. But of course, when you are 14 years old, you are not in charge of your workouts and when the coach says run a warm-up, you run a warm-up.

Once I was no longer on a team (aka college onward) I stopped warm-ups entirely. I felt I didn’t need them. Well, Andrea, once again, stop thinking you know more than the 1 million+ coaches/athletes/professionals out there who preach that warming your body up is essential for not only injury prevention… but for a great workout!

As I was thinking about my runs recently… all my best/fastest workouts have been either as a 2nd workout of the day, during a day when I had a long bike ride before hand, or during a triathlon after having swam and biked.

In all those cases, I was able to pull out faster times and paces than on days when I only had running. I was so confused! Well, Andrea… it is called warming up the muscles.

I have decided to become MUCH better with warm-ups. I want to do stride outs before hand… before a speed day/track workout I want to be sure I do a few miles to get the blood going… These are all “duhh” things, but I am notorious for not listening to the pro’s and thinking I knew better than them (dumb). I did a 20 min warm-up before the fartlek yesterday and I know that that made a difference!!

**Today I am going back down to my apartment to spackle (spelling on that?!?!) the walls where I had drilled holes to hang pictures, coat rack, tapestry (oh yes, I had a tapestry. It was huge and awesome) then I hope to come home for a long slooooow run!! 🙂 Really starting to dig those!!

Have a great Saturday everyone! Try not to work too hard (or at all!) and do something you enjoy!!

Tell me about your weekend plans!

-Apartment things, and we are hosting a bike ride follow by a dinner party on Sunday evening!

Are you good at warming up?

-Nope, but working on it 🙂

Tags: fartlek, Physical exercise, Speed, Train, Triathlon