Friday, June 4, 2010

Speeding Up


Many of us are recreational runners, but many of us are looking to boost up our speed a bit as well.

Jason R. Karp, Ph.D. contributed some great tips to the June issue of Runner's World in an article titled "Speed Dial". I could not find the article online, but you can check out this running coach's website for more information.

Using fartleks, you can add perhaps 10 of 90 to 120 second bursts of speed to your run in order to "spice" things up a bit. Try a ladder, where you run five minutes hard, followed by four minutes of recovery and reducing the period by one minute in each rep. Another fun exercise is running a series of hard 800s at 5k pace followed by an 800 at recovery pace.

Using these strategies will help prevent boredom and will add speed to your abilities. Make sure to have a good base of workouts under your belt before you get brave in trying these new exercises.

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