Fart.lek - noun
a training technique developed by Swede Gösta Holmér in 1937, used especially among runners, consisting of bursts of intense effort alternating with less strenuous activity.
Many months ago a client of mine suggested I should check out the Couch to 5k website. She was not implying I was fat, nor was she seeing me to deal with her obsession with exercise. She was simply sharing a resource she had found useful in her own journey to mental health and physical fitness.
I looked it up. It was interesting, logical. It didn’t appear to involve suffering, well, not too much anyway. But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t start running.
Why on earth would I? I’m seriously old and I’ve never been a runner. I get all beetroot-faced and I can’t breathe and my legs hurt and my insides feel as if they’re falling out and I get a headache and afterwards my muscles ache and I groan a lot. You get the picture.
Nevertheless, here I am in the home of fartlek not to mention the fact that it’s summer and everyone is out running. The “…it’s too dark and cold after work…” excuses don’t cut it at this time of year because it’s still light enough to see the pavement you’re pounding at 10:00 pm and sunrise today was a 4:04 am.
The challenge was inescapable.
Googled the website. Read the blurb. Downloaded the podrunner interval-training podcasts. Bought new earplugs, the sort that won’t fall out. Took a deep breath.
Yes folks, I’m out there! The doof-doof of my iPod keeps me moving and the interval-concept of alternating fast and slow makes this new endeavour possible. For some reason I’ve always known about fartlek, even though I’ve never tried it. I think fondly of the time when Daughter Number 2 learned about fartlek when she was 11 years-old and training for the Zone cross-country. As you can imagine, Aussie Primary School kids think the term is hysterical. Fart-leg…are you serious???
I think it’s funny too, but for a different reason. Fartlek translated from the Swedish means Speed-Play. This amuses me because I am neither speedy nor playful. I shuffle and I puff. I am not poetry in motion. But I am out there!
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I disown you. You can hang out with the brother that was into running at one stage and probably still is. I don't care how hilarious the terminology is, the enacting of it is lunacy. I am meeting a friend before dinner tomorrow evening and we are contracted to go for a leisurely amble along the river path for about three quarters of an hour. No beetroot faces, no shuffle, no puff, just something gentle and mildly aerobic. Join us any time when you've come to your senses.
ReplyDeleteI went through a stage where I tried running. The pavement hurt my joints, so I commandeered the local high school oval at ungodly hrs to do laps. No ipod, but my phone in stopwatch mode timing each lap endeavouring to go faster as I trained. I stopped when spontaneous bruising on my legs became unsightly, ranting at home about how hopeless I was. "What is more natural than running?! Children do it all the time!" My daughter number two just looked at me and said rather dryly that I was starting 45 yrs too late. Good luck to you!
ReplyDeleteNo, I like the fartlek idea. Because it's like running for people who like to give up (and I put myself in that category). You run for a short distance, and instead of having to make yourself run all the way around Princes Park - oops, flashback, and no, even my svelte 53kg 21 year old self never made it around jogging all the way) you get to walk, then jog again, then give up and walk... and it's all part of the plan! What a gift. Love your body as it is now, and visualise a fitter version, and you will be totally zen. I love a leisurely amble, but it doesn't get the genetically pathetic cardio-vascular system really doing its thing... so, amble one day, fartlek the next!(And yes, it's still funny).
ReplyDeleteHi from another Erika, but spelled differently. I remember fartleks with horror from high school track training sessions. I was always the slowest one on the track team and the fartlek was one of the most difficult trainings. I don't run any more now. Now I do yoga.
ReplyDeleteI like your blog!
warmly,
Erika