Turkey Lynx Toss Week 3: Try This Mini Speed Workout
How does Throwdown feel about you? If you drive tons of miles great, but if you relax a little or just join us, that’s fine too. This week’s workout is for everyone. We’re going to have some tiny singles races that will make you go faster.
What we are doing today is a form of interval training . At intervals, you work hard for a few seconds or minutes, and then take a break to catch your breath. Intervals are a really effective way to increase heart and lung endurance, and running fast can help build muscle in your legs.
It’s also just fun. We’re going to do some quick, one-minute “races” with two minutes of recovery in between. During the recovery phases, you just go and catch your breath. (If you feel like jogging, that’s fine, but not necessary.) Here’s the workout:
- Start with ten minutes of light jogging or a mixture of walking and jogging, whichever you usually do.
- If you are on the track, you immediately run along it . Stand in the inner lane where it most resembles the starting line and run . This should be 80 to 90 percent of your top speed. By the end, you should feel tired, but not die.
- If you are not on the track, run on time . Run for one minute, also at 80 to 90 percent of your maximum speed. If you notice where you started and where you left off, you can set aside hours and remember these landmarks.
- After starting the mini race, relax for two minutes. If you slowly return to the beginning, this is just the right time. Take a little more time if necessary, but remember: if you feel like you want to pass out, then you were running too hard. Next time, do it one notch down.
- Repetition. Run a total of four mini races and see how you feel. Beginners can quit here. Experienced runners, knock yourself out – 10 or 12 is good workout.
- Relax with ten minutes of light jogging or walking. Time is not critical here: five minutes is fine, or you can stay longer if the day is good and you enjoy the sunset. Just make sure to end on a high note and your brain will write the entire workout as a good memory .
If you want to do this workout on a treadmill, look at your local schools. Most high schools have lanes open to the public after school hours; you can call the school office to check, or just show up and look for signs. The straight path is 100 meters, so you can tell your running friends, “I did a little speed work! 4×100 meters today ”.
Speed work – as runners call intervals – can take many forms. If you’d like to learn more, check out our guide to speeding up . Going forward, try to incorporate some speed work into your routine every week. You can do today’s workout once a week, or choose a different workout each time.
One of my favorite simple types of speed work is 30-20-10 , where you run 30 seconds slow, 20 seconds medium and 10 seconds fast. The other is fartlek, where you just come up with it on the go: run fast when you feel like it and recover when you feel like it.
Some running apps have interval programs built in, or you can try this 27-minute audio track where record-breaking sprinter Michael Johnson takes you through a speed workout with lots of rewards and heartbreaking music.
Whichever you choose, speed work is a fun way to get stronger and faster, adding variety to your workouts. Give it a try and tell us how it went!