Fartlek, also known as speed training, was created in Sweden in the 1930s by Gosta Hölmer. It aims to change pace at different intervals to improve performance and add variety to the routine.

How to perform a Fartlek?
Three Fartlek workouts

Here, we recommend three Fartlek routines to add variety to your training:

1. 3×2 intervals

The warm-up is 10 minutes, with 6 intervals of 3 minutes each at a speed equivalent to a 10 km race, with recovery periods of approximately 2 minutes. The workout ends with a 10-minute cool-down.

Total duration of the session: 50 minutes

2. Street Running

Warm up 10 minutes, then run for 20 minutes, alternating fast and recovery periods. The blocks or streets will determine the intervals: a fast street and a recovery street. On fast streets, start slower until 20% of the street is reached, accelerate until reaching a maximum speed in the middle of the street, and decelerate in the last 20%. In this routine, you can use any marker as a reference. For example, lamp posts, trees, etc. These marks don’t need to obey a pattern of uniform distances. Finish the work with a 10-minute cool-down.

Total duration of the session: 40 minutes.

3. Fartlek in a team

This routine maintains the principles of Fartlek in terms of alternating periods of sustained running followed by recovery without a formal attachment to a distance. In this case, the variety is given by the fact that the work is done in a team, and each of the running intervals is led by a runner, who, upon completing this period, moves to the last position. Since there are different levels in a group, there will be more intense intervals than others.

The group must be as homogeneous as possible. As with the other routines, it should begin with a warm-up and end with a gradual cool-down.

Total session duration: Depending on the number of team members, but less than 50 minutes.

Remember that Fartlek consists of fast runs (say at a pace equivalent to a 5km race and a 10km race), followed by recovery periods at a jog equivalent to a brisk pace or easy run. It is a much less structured workout than conventional speed work.

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