Workout of the Week: The 90/30 Fartlek

The following workout comes from Jon Green, head coach of the Verde Track Club who guided Molly Seidel to a bronze medal in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. It’s essentially an enhanced version of the broken-up tempo run, alternating 90 seconds at around threshold pace with 30 seconds at the faster end of your easy running pace for 4-6 miles, and one of Green’s go-to sessions for all the athletes he works with. It was originally inspired by a workout Green did regularly when he was a collegiate athlete at Georgetown under coaches Pat Henner and Brandon Bonsey. “This is a sneaky hard workout,” Green told me. “The lore is that everybody hates it.” Here are the details:

WHAT: 4-6 continuous miles alternating 90 seconds at around threshold pace (the pace you could theoretically maintain for a 60-minute race) with 30 seconds at the faster end of your easy running pace (about 50-60 seconds per mile slower than threshold pace).

WARMUP/COOLDOWN: Warm up before the workout with 15-20 minutes of easy running followed by a set of drills and 4 x 15-20 second strides (i.e., accelerate for a few seconds, spend the middle seconds at near-top speed, and then gradually decelerate to a jog over the final few seconds. Catch your breath for 40-60 seconds between strides). Cool down after the workout with 5-10 minutes of easy running.

WHY: “This workout helps you practice learning where that red line is,” explains Green. “You have to thread that needle between pushing too hard and not pushing hard enough. One of the main goals is to give an athlete real perspective on what’s happening with their body. The last mile or two you’re really digging in a bit.”

WHERE: This workout is best done on the roads and ideally on flat terrain, but it can be translated to the trails or even run on a treadmill.

WHEN: This is a great workout to do when you’re getting back into the swing of things and one that you can repeat 2-4 times over the course of a training block. “It let’s us know where we’re at,” explains Green.