Eric Cartman Causes a Fire Hazard (South Park)

I got to Kezar Stadium today just as our Wednesday track coach Tom Colliers was starting to explain the day’s track workout schedule to the SF Marathon Training Group .

So imagine my surprise when I thought I heard something like “Fart… Swedish…… Intervals…. Hills….“. The first thing that came to my mind was Eric Cartman in South Park letting it rip in several episodes. In my defense, I wasn’t the only one thinking like that. Warren too was laughing like crazy and asked Tom during our warm up stretches about that Swedish workout‘s name.  As we learned later, Tom was using the official term for our track workout – Fartlek, the Swedish “Speed Play” interval training.

Fartlek training is originally attributed to swedish decathlete and trainer Gosta Holmer ( Gustaf (“Gösta”) Richard Mikael Holmér). Runners World has a detailed article ^ref1 explaining this workout, so I won’t repeat it here.

Workout Overview – Fartlek – Swedish “Speed Play” Interval Running

Once the giggling and snickering subsided, Tom explained to us in detail, what Fartlek Running was and how our Track Running today would look like.

He said “This week, we’ll be will be doing Fartlek Running. Basically you run hard for a little bit, then easy for a little bit, then hard for a little bit and easy for a little bit. Sort of like internvals, but much less structured. You set your own pace in terms of when you wanna do the hard part and when you wanna do the easy part.”

Tom then laid out other rules and instructions for the Fartek Running today, such as.

1. Do the hard part at your T-Pace. Don’t increase the intensity.
2. Do the easy part at E-Pace or at medium pace.
3. There should be clear distinction between the hard part and easy part.
4. Course is the Hilly Laps. So run straight on inner track, then up the trail and down the other side, back onto the inner track.
5. If you have problems with knees or other part of your body and it hurts, then stay on the flats / inner track (i.e. no uphills).

So to summarize,

• T-Pace uphills and downhills.
• Easy pace on the straightaways (Track)
• Do above two for 15 minutes.

Tom then announced the presence of my sf marathon blog (yay !) and said he will have Greg (the marathon program director) send out the link. He also reminded us that it is the first Wednesday of the month, so there would be a Social Drinking meet after the run at Kezar Pub just across the Kezar Stadium, on Stanyan Street.

Track Log – Fartlek – Interval Running

After our initial 10 minute warm up on the outer lap, I started my Fartlek laps with Steve and Luiz. The three of us also exchanged “experience notes” from our Saturday LSD Run at Bakers Beach. It turns out that Luiz was presenting in front of 150 people at a Clinical Dietitians conference on Saturday and could not make it to the run. I was telling him how I choked on my Saturday run and paid for my bad behavior the previous night (drinking too much Beer, staying out too late until 1 AM).

We had to run for 15 minutes today. Steve and Luiz left me behind in the 2nd lap, about 2 minutes into the Fartlek. Meanwhile, I was still recovering from a variety of things  – alcohol withdrawal from stopping the beers cold-turkey after the guilt attack on Saturday, lack of sleep from serial blogging and a whole bunch of other factors. So I took it a little easy and did the workout at a slower pace, kidding myself into believing what several other SF Marathon Trainees and Pacers have been saying all along.

Remember, you are only racing against yourself, so don’t be competing with other runners. Just do it at your own pace, that’s all that really matters !.

Anyways, I finished the 15 minute Fartlek and then ran the cool-down laps for 10 minutes. At the end of my cool-down lap, I ran into Shera again. Shera had run the Marathon in 2009 and had finished at an impressive 3 hour and 42 minutes.

By now, I was quite exhausted and had decided to call it a night, but Shera encouraged me to do the feeling brave optional laps with him and I caved, lest he starts to think I am a wuss.  Shera is an immigrant from Nepal and he seemed to be into the whole “Bollywood Movies Scene“, so he started talking to me about some new Hindi movies.

Since I am still recovering from my visual and mental illness that comes from watching near-ghostly-white -looking-indian-actors-and-actresses-running-around-trees-dancing-hugging-and-singing movies, I was unable to hold my end of the conversation with Shera. I was, however, able to finish the 2 extra feeling brave optional laps.

Finally we did some stretches for 5 minutes. Tom re-invited everyone to the first Wednesday Social drinks at Kezar Pub, so I changed into my jeans and jacket and left for Kezar Pub.

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