Races from 5K-10K are most common this time of year and as we have a flat and fast 5K coming up this weekend, here’s a challenging speed-based workout to get you ready. The idea is to complete about 5K worth of distance in your work intervals in a combined time that is faster than your target 5K race pace. How do you do that? You take a little bit of rest in between work intervals. After a 10 minute warmup, run a descending ladder, increasing the pace and decreasing the rest interval as you go. Start with a mile and then descend through the ladder as written below. The total volume of this workout is about 10K so it’s best to do this with rest days on both sides or at least 5 days before a target race. For those who aren’t up to the volume yet, start at the first sequence of 800’s and skip the opening mile and a half. After the workout, add up the times of the work intervals. You’ve just set a 5K PR in the middle of a 10K run! Now go race that 5K.

Session

Warmup: 10 minutes, include arm circles, reaches and upper body warmup as well as running

Session: 1x1600x800, 1x800x800, 1x800x400, 1x400x400, 2x400x200, 1x200x200, 1x200x100, 2x100x100.

Cooldown: 10 minutes followed by some basic running drills – butt kicks, high knees, skipping, heel slides, crossovers – no more than 100m each. Follow with 4 50m strides.

The Barnstable Girl Scouts’ Services Unit will be hosting a six week summer fitness program for all school-aged girls who are or who would like to become registered Girl Scouts. The program will begin on 30 June and the group will meet twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6-8PM at the Barnstable High School Track. For more information, visit the BGSSU website or contact Susan Sander.

A special race designed just for you and your dog, choose the 5K or 10K option, this Saturday in Provincetown. And there’s even a national series! Woof!

Fartlek is typically translated as “speed play” … and that’s the order of business today. Fartlek workouts can be done anywhere, on any surface, alone or with buddies, and in any weather … because the whole point is to run fast while having some fun. Today, we’ll set up some cones around the track and you decide where you want to run fast and where you want to run slow. Run two cones fast and rest for four, run one fast and one easy, ignore the cones completely and use spots on the ground, airplanes flying over, or the soccer balls from after-school practice as your signals to start and stop. The key is to mix it up with a lot of variety and end the day with a good bout of speed. You can even ignore your watch and your pace today since it’s all about having fun while running hard!

Session

Warmup: 10 minutes, include arm circles, reaches and upper body warmup as well as running

Session: 20 minutes fartlek – cones, telephone poles, mailboxes, trees, holes, school buses, whatever gets the job done.

Cooldown: 10 minutes followed by some basic running drills – butt kicks, high knees, skipping, heel slides, crossovers – no more than 100m each. Follow with 4 50m strides.

Join us at Long Pond in Brewster to practice your triathlon. A pond swim, 10 mile bike, and 3.6 mile run on the Rail Trail will get you ready for that upcoming sprint, whether it’s TimeOut! Productions Sprint 1 in Hyannis next weekend or elsewhere. But don’t feel constrained by what we’ve setup. Use this event to practice your transitions, do a weak leg over and over, or double the legs for an Olympic distance training race. Start time is 8:00AM and we request that all participants become members of the Cape Cod Athletic Club. For more information, read this flyer and check out the race course.

With a brief lull in the racing calendar, we’ll focus on some endurance intervals this week. You can adjust your intervals by changing the length of either the work part of the interval or the rest part. Changing the duration of the work interval trains your body to run at a specific goal pace for a set duration of time and efficiently buffer the waste products. Changing the rest interval trains your body to recover quickly, run at goal pace while slightly fatigued, and helps in adjusting to mid-race surges and terrain changes. For this session, we’ll keep the work interval set at a single lap (400m) and shorten the rest interval to a half lap (200m). Make sure to NOT fully recover between work intervals. Your heart rate should still be elevated as you start the next repeat. Beginners should be running 6-8 repeats and advanced runners should aim for a minimum of 12 repeats. Work interval should be run at your target 10K race pace.

Session

Warmup: 10 minutes, include arm circles, reaches and upper body warmup as well as running

Session: 12 x 400 x 200, don’t fully recover between work intervals. Run work intervals at 10K goal pace. HR trainers should be running at about 85% VO2Max.

Cooldown: 10 minutes followed by some basic running drills – butt kicks, high knees, skipping, heel slides, crossovers – no more than 100m each. Follow with 4 50m strides.