Short Fartlek Intervals: Speed Training with the ASICS Pace Academy™ Challenge

This week’s running workout is the second in a series of five workouts that make up the ASICS Pace Academy™ Challenge. Fartlek is the Swedish term for “speed play,” and that’s exactly what you will be doing in this workout. By playing around with how long your speed intervals last, you will get a hard workout while having fun!

In this workout, you will run at three different paces: at your normal, easy pace for the slow intervals, your moderate pace (this should be around 45-90 seconds per mile faster than your slow pace) and push it hard for the fast intervals (about 2-2.5 minutes per mile faster than your slow pace). The intervals are short and introduce your legs (and mind) to faster running. You don’t have to run hard for more than 1-2 minutes at a time in this run.  You can do it – now let’s get running!

The Workout

• Warm up with 5 minutes of easy running.
• Run 5 minutes at a steady pace.
• Run 1 minute fast.
• Run 1 minute slow.
• Run 1 minute fast.
• Run 1 minute slow.
• Run 2 minutes fast.
• Run 2 minutes slow.
• Run 1 minute fast.
• Run 1 minute slow.
• Run 1 minute fast.
• Run 1 minute slow.
• Run 2 minutes fast.
• Cool down with 6 minutes of easy running.

Join the ASICS Pace Acedemy Challenge here or by visiting the challenges section of the app for helpful audio cues to guide you through this, and four other workouts to help you work on improving your speed. Remember, getting faster is a personal goal! It doesn’t matter if you improve by 2 minutes or 10 seconds, every little bit counts.

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