Fartleks - Terrible Name, Great Exercise!

Greek Fest 5K - Post run rewards!

I've never been one to run more than 3 times a week and enjoy it at the same time. When I train for specific races, I'll manage to squeeze in 4-5 runs per week. But at that point, running begins to feel like a chore. I couldn't maintain that kind of running schedule week after week, year after year. ::yawn::

I am also less inclined to complete strength workouts when I'm training for a race. Why would I exhaust my leg muscles and make my next run more difficult? (I understand that my thought process lacks logic...but it's still my general trend when training.) I believe strength is important, and if you can run 6 miles but can't do 20 push ups or squat jumps, then there's an imbalance.So when I train for races, my overall strength suffers. And let's be honest...running is just not that interesting unless you're surrounded by mountains or cool urban scenery.

So why am I bringing this up? Every once in a while, I do get race fever. I've been thinking it might be nice to run a race soon and change up my workout routine just a little bit.

Completely exhausted @ mile 10 of the
NOLA Rock n' Roll Half Marathon

Ryan and I will be in New Orleans for Thanksgiving, and we were both thinking of signing up for the Turkey Day race. It's a 5 mile race on Thanksgiving day that goes through beautiful City Park. Five miles is a reasonable distance, and who doesn't want to feel just a little less guilty for a large dinner later in the day :)

I'm not willing to start running 4+ times a week. I enjoy my current workout schedule and all its strength exercises. So in order to train for this upcoming race, I need to make my current runs more efficient. 

Ryan and I already go trail running about once a week. New Orleans is flatter than anything, so trail running (which, even in Houston, has slight gradients) will have me more than ready for a flat race and the one or two bridges throughout. I also plan to include fartleks into my regular runs, which should occur twice a week. (If you're doing the simple math, that's only 3 runs a week....and I'll also put an occasional Tabata sprint in the mix.) I'm interested to see if this small amount of running, in addition to circuit-style workouts throughout the week, will do the trick.

Fartleks will be my running tool of choice. If you're unfamiliar with fartleks, they're intervals that are casually thrown into your regular run. They're a great exercise for the runner who doesn't enjoy structured speed workouts or running in circles around a track. They also happen to have a TERRIBLE name.

This is just one way to use fartleks to create an
interval workout. There's no wrong way to include
them!

Above is an example of one fartlek workout I completed earlier this week. Here's the good thing about fartleks (I really hate that word...) - you don't have to structure them in any particular way. You can throw in one fartlek (just slightly increase your speed and stride) at the end of a run, OR you can throw them in throughout your entire run. It doesn't matter. As long as you're putting forth the effort to move faster, your speed will increase. I hate the process of increasing my speed, so I do fartleks because it feels like I'm cheating. 

So I'm interested to see how this process works out. A 5 mile race requires training, and I don't want to be too slow, so I'm hoping this strategy works. I'll definitely update you when the day comes :)

Question: What kind of races have you done? Which races do you enjoy the most? I think I would really enjoy an obstacle race like Tough Mudder or something along those lines!