On Tuesday I had to do a ‘Fartlek’ session. Which takes us back to the old saying – you know you’re taking your running too seriously when you can say Fartlek without laughing!

Fartlek is a Swedish word and means speed play. It is a kind of random interval training session and can include a variety of pace. Where as interval training uses specific times or distances to break down your fast and slow sections of your session, Fartlek is not as structured as this and instead you use the scenery and items around you on your run to determine the distances covered at varying speeds. For example, jog to warm up for about a mile, then sprint between two lampposts, run at a steady pace until you reach a bus stop, sprint to the pelican crossing, etc, and then jog for about a mile to warm down safely. I don’t enjoy this and find that I probably don’t push myself as hard as I would on say a hill session or interval session. So I came up with an idea! As a group fitness instructor I am constantly interpreting music to exercise. This week three new CD’s arrived in the post for me to listen to and use in my classes. Perfect timing so to speak, I could don my ipod on my fartlek session and ‘run to the beat!’ It worked well and I would recommend giving it a go, as long as there is no Leonard Cohen on your ipod you will run like the wind on your fartlek sessions! (Who says I’m not taking this seriously?) On Thursday I had to run 11 miles ‘steady’, which is pretty much equal to my estimated marathon pace. Unusually for me I set off ‘early’ (8am, I’m not naturally a morning person). It was foggy and I thought it would be sensible to slightly alter my planned route so as to keep on the footpaths. My device for keeping track of my time, pace and distance has broken so it was kind of guess work.

The whole run felt hard and at the end of the 11 miles I was exhausted. However, this wasn’t the worst of it, as when I tracked my route on ‘walkjogrun.com’ it came up as only 9 and a bit miles. I decided to drive the route in my car to double check, and unfortunately it confirmed the ‘short’ distance. Gutted!

Sunday morning and 20 miles was the order of the day. We parked up at St. Peters garden centre and headed in the direction of Kempsy. Apart from that I’m not sure where we went, as I don’t really pay attention to where I am when I’m running! All I know is we avoided the main roads as much as possible and enjoyed the country lanes. Ron called directions eg. Turn left turn right, come out of that mans garden, from the comfort of his bike and carried my much-needed water and Lucozade (and map!) on this warm spring morning.

I kept a pretty steady pace and managed to complete the route in my scheduled time with 26 seconds to spare! This made me feel a lot better about my training again, although I was left with a very sore right calf muscle which I only really became aware of when we stopped for a very welcome cappuccino at the garden centre on our return!

As soon as I got home I applied the recommended recovery to the affected leg RICE (rest, ice, compress, elevate) for 20 minutes, before the warmth of a warm shower on the muscle.

Thanks once again to those of you that have already sponsored me for running the London Marathon ’09 for Acorns Children’s Hospice. If you would like to make a donation please go to www.justgiving.com/vikkisivertsen.