Fartlek

Fartlek means “speed play,” and refers to a wide variety of workouts that involve changing speeds.  Today I joined a training group for their Thursday fartlek.  I had been warned that the pace would be fierce, and it might be a bit much for me.  My neighbor Rashid and I went together.  Rashid’s run 29:16 for 10k, so I knew that once the workout started I’d be on my own.  But it was nice to have someone to show me the way on the warmup.

We met at 8:30, instead of 6:15 when the group meets other days.  Hard running always occurs a little later in the morning.  There were about 60 runners today, a little smaller than normal.  As is typical of Keynan runs, the warmup began very gradually, at little more than a walk.  We warmed up for just over 20 minutes, heading steadily downhill.  I knew we were near the start of the workout because the men started peeling off to the side to pee in the bushes.

We spent about 10 minutes milling about and stretching as more runners arrived.  One man announced the workout: “25 one-one.”  One minute easy, one minute hard.  Twenty five times, for a total of 50 minutes.  The women gathered up first and I asked if I should be joining them.  Some men told me no.  Did they know how slow I am?  As I watched the women run away I thought that I should really be with them.

The male pack started a few minutes after the women.  We counted down to synchronize our watches.  We started with 1 minute easy, then one minute hard. I put myself at the very back of the pack.  The first one wasn’t so tough, but one minute isn’t long to recover.  I was pleased to see that I was running with three other guys.   They were running a little more steady pace, so I would pass them on my hard sections, and get passed back on the easy sections.  But after 5 hard sections, they stopped!  I was on my own at the back again.

As I watched the lead group, which was already about a minute ahead of me, I thought of my experiences in the first mile or so of Bloomsday, watching a wave of Kenyan runners floating quickly and apparently without effort across the countryside.  There were still at least 30 people in the lead group.  I was worried about getting lost, especially as the lead group got farther ahead.  There were a number of stragglers though, so I thought if I could keep a few people in sight.  I was catching up to another runner, but right before I passed him he took a shortcut back.

About this time we passed a much larger group going the other direction.  It was made up of at least 120 runners, and they were far more spread out than my group.  Perhaps I should join this other group next week!  I might have more company.  Shortly after this I passed the women from my group coming back towards me.

We were on a route I had run, which was rolling downhill for about 6km and then steadily uphill for another 6k.  There was a runner about 30 seconds ahead of me, but then he took a turn I wasn’t familiar with that led in a direction I hadn’t yet gone.  What to do?  If I follow the runner, who was now the only one I could see, and then he stops (or goes home) I’ll be on my own and could get lost.  But I didn’t want to lose the group and have Rashid worry that I was lost.  These thoughts played through my head during the last 15 seconds of a hard minute, when there wasn’t much blood going to my brain anyway.  I took the familiar path.

I was on my own for the last 8 one-ones.  They were pretty much all uphill.  At one point two men passed me on my easy minute and they were moving.  They gave me a target and I was able to stay even with them during my hard minute.  A neighbor had told me that after the last interval the Kenyans walk for about 10 minutes.

“You might think, why walk?” he told me.  “But after that workout, it feels pretty good.”  I walked for about 10 minutes, and then jogged back.  The rest of the group was back at the meeting place.  They had run a loop which finished at their starting point.  I talked to several people.  They complimented me on finishing the workout.  I have a goal now: finish the actual loop.

I’m still avoiding the track.  Several hundred runners meet at the track every Tuesday.  They run very fast.  Vasili, my Russian friend, said that next to them “you look like a disabled person.”