Today was beautiful -- cool, calm and bright sunshine.  I was due for interval workouts today, so I decided to substitute fartlek training rather than running set intervals.  The beauty of that is that I can just break into speed whenever I feel like it and I do not need to keep checking my watch.

I chose to make all my speed breaks downhill.  This has several benefits:
  1. It's easier, if you have hilly conditions like I do
  2. I can go faster in my training intervals
  3. I can concentrate on my form and practice running downhill for racing.
There are probably other benefits too, but that's enough to convince me! 

Fartlek training adds variety to your routine, because, let's face it, training can get boring at times!  I don't know whether I get the all the benefits of interval training from fartlek, but it's more fun and I feel like I'm running faster and enjoying it more.  I would not recommend replacing all your interval workouts with fartlek, but it's great fun to do it once in a while.

Be careful, though, because some coaches recommend fartlek routines that look a lot like intervals to me.  The whole point of fartlek is that you take the fast breaks when you feel like it, and drop back to your normal running speed as soon as you need to.  If you start "forcing" it, it's not fartlek any more!

There are really only three rules for fartlek.  They are:
  1. Loosen up by stretching and get a good warmup before you take a speed break
  2. Cool down and stretch afterwards
  3. Have fun!
Keep your training calendar flexible, and if you're not familiar with fartlek training, give it a try.  It's so refreshing to just run for the fun of it rather than following a pattern.  Be careful, though, it can be addictive!