the easiest or hardest thing you do all week. It’s a Swedish term meaning ‘speed play’, and it basically consists of fast, medium and slow running over a variety of distances.Here’s how a typical fartlek session would work. After a steady warm-up, simply pick

Runners are a busy bunch. Too often, we push back our speed, fitness or weight-loss goals when life gets in the way. The focused workouts over the following pages are designed to make you faster, stronger and fitter - in however many minutes you can

or skip running altogether on the day after a speed session.9. Start with fiveThat’s a good number of repetitions to begin with for most speedwork sessions. And one session a week is wise at first. After your body adjusts, add a second session.10

If winter is the time of year for lengthy, plodding endurance sessions to keep your fitness ticking over, then summer is all about shorter bursts of energy and using the fairer conditions to hone your technique, sharpen speed and unleash your true

Fatigue"A good way to increase your strength and speed is to do a session that makes you run faster when you're already fatigued," says Owen Anderson, editor of Running Research News. So, on today's run – four to eight miles – run at normal pace until you

seconds, you could try to start each repetition every 60 seconds.If you want a less taxing session that generates more speed, have a 200m recovery spread over two minutes and aim to run significantly faster than mile speed. Because a runner’s speed over

you close to your potential, whatever your training or racing goals?You guessed it: there are. Use the following three sessions as the bedrock of your weekly routine and you’ll be firing yourself up with speed, strength and endurance – the three key

). It can lead to the biggest improvements in your speed endurance and causes a knock-on effect at all distances from 5K to marathon. Use the session to hit a range of paces - for example, in a session of mile reps, run some parts nearer to marathon or half

trainingSpeed training is often overlooked in winter but it should be kept up all year round. If you have not done speed work, start off gently to avoid pulling a muscle. Try introducing hill running, track sessions and intervals to your training

-to-bike sessions, thus guaranteeing optimum response during racing.Speed kingIt's a good idea to base your brick training on the demands of your next race. Sessions can cover practising race pace; developing aerobic endurance, threshold pace and aerobic endurance