Practice switching gears with this fun workout

In an ideal world, you would run a consistent pace from the start of your race to the end, and cross the finish line with a shiny new PB every time. Of course, we know this isn’t realistic. Sometimes you start out too fast and have to dial back the pace later on, and sometimes you have to surge in the middle of a race (to cover surges by other athletes, to get around unexpected obstacles or to make up for time spent in the porta potty).

This workout will help you prepare for both scenarios and teach you how to control your pace, no matter what happens on race day.

A skill every runner should have

Learning how to adjust your speed mid-run (or race) is an important skill. It will help you make up for race-day challenges like going out too fast or too slow, having to slow your pace to get around a hairpin turn, and even how to return to race pace after climbing a steep, pace-killing hill. 

Each interval in this workout is broken up into two parts. The first minute is hard, followed immediately by three minutes at your tempo pace. While it may sound like a relief to switch from faster to slower, don’t let that fool you. Many runners make the mistake of slowing down too much in a workout like this, and maintaining your tempo pace after a bout of hard running is tougher than it sounds. 

The rest during this workout is an easy jog, so you’re constantly switching from fast to medium to slow to fast again. Changing gears is the name of the game.

The workout

Warmup: 15-20 minutes easy jog

Workout: 1 minute hard/3 minutes tempo/2 minutes easy; repeat 3-4 times

Cooldown: 10-15 minutes easy jog, followed by some light stretching

posted Tuesday August 29th
by Brittany Hambleton