One of my favorite workouts for myself and my athletes is the fartlek run, especially during the off-season! There are endless ways to incorporate fartlek runs into training and they can help maintain some speed when you’re not training while also keeping your runs fun and interesting. I’m going to share 5 variations of fartlek runs to keep running interesting during the off-season. Remember that these can be adjusted in many ways depending on your goals and how much time you have!
5 Fartlek Runs To Keep Running Interesting During the Off-Season
First, let’s talk about fartlek runs and what they look like. Fartlek is Swedish for speedplay, and these kinds of runs focus on turning over the legs without a focus on speed or distance. They can be measured by time, landmarks, songs, etc. The concept is that you are surging and recovering throughout your run to work on endurance and speed. Remember to always start with a warm up and end with a cool down when you are doing any kind of harder workout
8-10 x 1 Minute Fartlek Run
This is usually where I start when an athlete is coming back from time off (after already building a base). 1 minute goes by pretty quickly, so mentally this isn’t a challenging workout. It is long enough to get your legs turning over faster. The recovery time in between can be 1 or 2 minutes.
6-10 Hill Surges
These can be done on any hill you can find. The longer the hill, the shorter you will run and the less reps you will do. If you have one short hill that you can run up and down, and you can do 8-10 surges up the hill and either walk or slowly jog back down the hill. If you are running a hilly route you can just try to push harder each time you encounter a hill.
8-10 x 2 Minute Fartlek Run
After mastering the 1 minute fartleks, 2 minutes is a great next step. The longer intervals give you more time to settle into your pace. Again, these are based on effort and not a set pace. I like to think of them as 2 minutes “on” while the recovery is “off”. In between sets you can recover for 1-2 minutes.
Pyramid Workout
This is my favorite kind of fartlek! These are fun and different, and they go by pretty quickly. The idea is to start with shorter intervals, like 1-2 minutes, and gradually make each interval longer, up to about 5 minutes, and then work your way back down. See the image below for an example of what this might look like.
Long Interval Fartlek Run
Long intervals are still not super long, but they may be in the 5-10 minute range. If you are running longer intervals, your effort will be less than those 1-2 minute intervals. This is a great way to focus on holding a more challenging pace without doing a formal tempo run. You can do something like 3 x 5 minutes hard with 2-3 minutes recovery, or 2 x 10 minutes hard with 5 minute recovery. Don’t look at your watch and just run by feel!
There are so many ways to incorporate fartlek runs into your training. The options I just shared are more structured, but you can also do very unstructured fartleks. This might mean just picking up the pace whenever you feel like it. You can also use landmarks (like run faster for one block) or music (pick up the pace during the chorus of a song). Just remember to have fun and enjoy these kinds of workouts!
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These are great ideas, Lisa, thanks for the reminder that these kinds of workouts exist!
The other day I was running up a hill and told myself to just “keep running until that tree”… I guess it was a fartlek of sorts! 🙂
I should do them more often as a conscious workout.
It does sound kind of like a fartlek workout! They can be a good way to add some variety to runs.
Thanks for sharing this Lisa. I’ve done the shorter fartlek runs but never the longer interval ones! When I had a coach, I was always trying different workouts. This is a reminder that I can still incorporate different workouts even if I’m training on my own.
You definitely can! I prefer the shorter fartleks but the longer ones can be a good way to change things up too.
I’ve got to ask: what is the difference between hill repeats & a hill fartlek? I’ve just never considered hill repeats to be fartleks! I actually do enjoy them (sometimes, anyway), but in Winter they are generally hard to do due to the conditions.
There’s definitely some overlap between a hill repeat and a hill fartlek (in some cases they are the same). Fartleks are generally less structured and have a true focus on effort/time vs pace/distance. Usually hill repeats are done this way anyway. I try to make hill fartleks fun and not too strenuous:)
Great ideas. I don’t have an off season. I see to have more races in the winter.
But I think these could be helpful in the summer when I add shorter races.
They could also be helpful in between races when you don’t have time for a full training cycle!
I have been doing lots of these the past few weeks and I am enjoying them much more than expected. I like the 30 second and 60 second intervals and find them very doable
That’s great! They really can be a fun way to change up your training.
Yes, I’ve been loving fartleks lately. I’ve been doing them very unstructured- like running hard for two telephone poles, then easy for two poles, etc. But I like your fartlek pyramid workout! I’m going to try that this week- thanks!
The pyramid workout is one of my favorites! The longest interval feels hard but then you know they get shorter as the workout progresses!
These are all so great! Having options definitely keeps things interesting, which leads to better motivation!
Exactly! Some days I’d rather go out and do a fartlek run instead of an easy run just to change things up.
There are so many variations with fartlek runs!