The week that was...

Had a decent 'tempo fartlek' on Saturday. It's a session of approx 5 x 2km ( I do it at Burnaby Lake where they have 'posts' that are a bit longer than 1km and on gravel trails) at or just below tempo pace with 1 km about 25-30 sec slower. But on this day I hit the splits I wanted on the hard parts, but my slow parts were not much slower (about 12sec at the best and 20sec at the worst). Since I kept up the harder parts at the required HR, effort and most improtantly pace it turned into a very steady session. Shows my aerobic fitness is very good as my HR was lower than many other past sessions yet I ran faster.
PM was a 'slow as' 37 min run.

It's a workout that has evolved over the years. A few years back I was bored one day and wanted to get into longer tempo runs. Since very few people actually seem to do tempo style runs I always ended up doing them on my own. Since I still have the mindset of a miler I tend to get bored easily in longer sessions. I really enjoy fartlek style runs (a topic dear to my heart) and over time took a traditional 2 x 20mins and turned into a staple of my workout sessions. Also great because anyone can hop in and do as many sets as they can/want based upon their fitness. Good thing was that a few years back I found this exact workout (except the hard parts were at marathon pace)in top British marathoner Richard Nerukar's training book. Like I say there is really nothing new these days even if you think it is...