, steady exercise lasting at least 30 minutes. The exception to this is usually swimming, in which endurance sessions can be broken down into shorter swims with recovery intervals. A little recovery can also help to maintain good stroke mechanics during

-littered trails. "On longer, hard runs, aim for a pace that's about 80 per cent of your race pace. When it comes to the speedier sessions – such as mile reps or intervals – aim for 110 per cent," says Frapwell. "As long as you're hitting faster than race pace, you

by requiring you to swim for an extended period without rest.Swim intervals are the second important workouts to include in triathlon training. A typical session would start with a few easy warm-up lengths, followed by some drills to improve your technique

Yes, I know, you don’t do speedwork. You run for fun, relaxation and fitness, not to induce pain. You’ve seen those interval training articles before, but you turn over the page because that just isn’t what you and your running are about. You

Q For six months I’ve been running twice a week. I do a long Sunday run, and a hard midweek hill or interval session. Is it possible to run a 3:30 marathon with only two sessions a week? All the marathon schedules I read say to run five or six days

. Include some short interval work in your training. After a good warm-up, run 6-10 x 30- to 45-second efforts with a pre-determined rest between each repetition. Progress by increasing the speed of such efforts or increasing the number or reducing

track intervals, fartlek doesn’t require you to set a distance to run, or a time to recover. A watch isn’t necessary (although in the absence of landmarks you can use one to pick different times for your hard sections), as you listen to your body

and fit one of these in at least every 10 days.I’d also recommend training on the track. Try hard intervals over as little as 200-400m, up to 1K. Shorter repetitions will help improve your pure speed and help you kick at the end of races. Longer

to train the locomotor muscles (distance work) and in cycling for training designed to induce adaptations in the pumping ability of the heart (short interval work). Indeed, it is possible that you may be able to work hard with greater cardiovascular

of these sessions (decreasing recovery intervals as you get fitter); and in the other do two or three longer efforts at 10 per cent slower than your target race pace, with a fixed recovery time of five minutes. You should aim to work for a total of 1-1.5 times your