A speed workout for change of pace
I got asked by a non-running co-worker this week what the best workouts were to stay in shape? Was it the low effort aerobic stuff, like running and walking? Was it the high intensity stuff like crossfit? Was it the strength building stuff like weights?
I paused for a second, searching for a short answer. I realized this was another one of those reductionist attempts that we are so fond of in the modern world. The answer I eventually came up with was, “Well, you have to do it all.”
You have to do the long aerobic stuff to build up your heart and lungs and the rest of that plumbing, but you also have to work in some strength work to keep yourself strong and functional.
The same is true with your running routine. Too many of us fall into the ‘lots of long slow miles’ rut. That’s fine and it will keep you relatively fit, but it’s still a rut.
It’s difficult to do everything. When you’re training for a specific event, like a marathon, you necessarily shift the focus of your workouts to that event. Even when you shift the balance you still have to maintain some strength and flexibility workouts or you become fragile. Especially as you get older.
That’s a roundabout way of saying speed work is important as part of your training.
The types and mix of workouts will shift over time as well. If you’re training for a race the balance and mix of workout focus will shift as you progress through the training cycle.
Without further ado and kerfuffle let me walk you through a simple speed workout you can mix into your training at any point. My coach Jeff at PRSFit drops these into my schedule every once and awhile, especially during taper weeks.
The basic outline for this workout is a series of pickups at faster than your 5K pace. Warm up. Do a set of pickups or repeats with recovery and then warm down. These are really easy to program into your running watch. At least they’re easy for me to turn into a Garmin workout.
First you warm up well. Most people will scrimp on their warm ups because they want to get to the good stuff. But, if you are going to be pushing your machine to faster or harder efforts than it is used to, you really need to make sure you warm up well. I’ll usually warm up for at least 10 minutes and for shorter workouts I’ll warm up for 20.
What does this mean? It means for 20 minutes you’ll just run super easy. Focus on settling into a low effort level. You shouldn’t be breathing hard. Your heart rate should settle into zone 2 or lower. Keep your form nice and clean. Short, quick and light strides.
When you get to the workout part of the show you are going to do a series of short pickups. You can measure these either by time, or by distance. For these short pickups I would suggest time. Do 20 – 30 seconds for each pickup with a 20-30 second recovery.
If you have a cross country racing background you may remember these as the ‘30-30’ workout.
Alternately you can use distance. If you’re on a track this is in the 75-100 meters range. If you’re out on the road it might be the distance between two telephone poles.
The effort level for these is not an all-out sprint. The effort level is 20 seconds per mile faster than your 5K pace. If you raced your last 5k at an average of 7 minute miles then you target the pickup for 6:30-6:40.
If you want to use effort level it’s a zone 4-5 or about a 75-80% effort. However you are measuring these I wouldn’t try to look at your watch during the workout. The repeats are too short for either pace or effort level to catch up on a running watch. Just do them by feel. Run at what feels like 80% effort.
How many should you do? That’s a good question. I usually do 20. With a 20 minute warm up and a 20 minute cool down and 20 X 30 pickup with 20 X 30 recovery it’s a nice round hour. If you want more work you can do more. If you’re not as fit or not used to doing speedwork, do less.
The secret sauce is in how you execute the pickups.
When the timer goes off you don’t put your head down and drop into a dead sprint! When the timer starts you smoothly accelerate up to speed. You make sure to use great form. Straighten up. Run tall. Head up. Hands loose and high with an easy, relaxed arm swing. Shoulders relaxed. Face relaxed. Hands relaxed.
Push your hips forward, like you’re being pulled by the belt buckle. Lean forward at the ankles. Rapid, light foot plants on the forefoot. Foot comes up high behind you on the follow through. The knee lifts high into the next stride.
Form, not effort is the secret sauce.
Once you have the form you can increase the turnover of your stride to go faster. That’s how you smoothly, and with power, accelerate into the pickup speed. Then you hold that effort until the timer buzzes.
Smoothly return to whatever comfortable jog you want to do the recovery at. I know some of you are walkers, but I don’t walk my recovery. The goal of the recovery is to have your heart rate return into zone 2, or as close as you can get it, before you start the next acceleration.
It’s actually a decently hard workout if you do enough reps. The cool thing about this workout is anyone can run hard for 30 seconds. As you get towards the end of the session the cumulative work catches up with you and it gets challenging.
What do you get out of this workout? You get to practice a higher level of effort. You get to practice finding and maintaining good form at a higher level of effort. You get the strength benefit and the stride efficiency benefit of speedwork. You get to practice transitioning between different levels of effort and recovering.
All of these things are beneficial and can’t be had from just running miles.
You don’t have to drop into a crazy hard speedwork program. You can get a lot of the benefits and keep your training balanced by working in a couple simple workouts every once in a while.