Fartlek. Fart lick. Fart leck. Fartlek is by the far the oddest term I ever learned in my running days. It’s odd to say it out loud, but actually doing this is so beneficial to runners. While I no longer run, I wondered if I could somehow achieve this on the elliptical.

Fartlek is running short sprints and then jogging back to your starting point. These ‘bursts’ of sprints help your push-off in running, builds your endurance, and helps you overall become a faster runner.

I felt lately the elliptical has just been boring. I think partly because it’s not running. Ugh.

I keep my elliptical on scan mode so it bounces around on everything I need to see to know where I’m at in the workout. There are six different modes, and each mode stays on for five seconds. When you get bored like I do, I started paying attention and wishing my 30 minutes would hurry the hell up.

Last week I wondered if I could do fartlek training on elliptical. I was always a ball-of-foot runner, so let’s give it a go. Last Saturday I did my normal (Zzzz) pace for 20 seconds (4 modes) and then did as fast as I could for 10 seconds (2 modes). Holy crap! That was harder than I thought. I did the fartlek up on my toes. I could feel it in my calves. I liked it.

Each time I would reach a 0.25 distance, I would rest two cycles, or 1 minute.

It took me just over 28 minutes to do my goal of two miles. When I reached my goal, I just did regular speed until I reached 30 minutes in order for a cooldown. Not bad…above average walker pace. I was spinning the thoughts in my mind. I had to do four fartlek rounds to reach every 0.25. I did 32 fartlek rounds. WOW.

Yesterday I felt it in my booty and my calves. (And a tad in my hands where I gripped the handles during the fartlek). SO worth it. I feel like I’m getting the burn I am needing mentally to pretend I’m running. I’m proud of myself.

My time to write blogs seems less, but at the same time, I enjoy it. I keep debating if I should stop. I’ll let my work pace this year determine that.

Until next time….peace out, trouts!