PEARL HILL - FARTLEK HILL ???
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Fartlek Training at Pearl Hill |
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Whether you are training for a long ride like Century Ride in Ipohor whether you are just about to start training for your first triathlon, at some point you are going to pick up the intensity of your workouts. The perfect way to introduce your body to training at varying intensities is to add fartlek training into your weekly routine early in your training season. For those unfamiliar with the terminology, the word fartlek is Swedish for "speedplay" and has been a training technique used by distance runners for many years. In essence a fartlek workout includes short bursts of higher intensity efforts interspersed between steady state aerobic efforts. The periods of high intensity work can vary throughout the workout or be maintained at a fixed interval. In general these efforts range in duration from 30 seconds up to 5 minutes. Although commonly associated with run workouts, fartlek training can also be used successfully for cycling and swimming workouts. The following are examples of some fartlek workouts you can use... On the indoor trainer, start by warming up with a spin on an easy gear for 10 minutes. The fartlek set will begin with a 30 second acceleration until you are maintaining a high cadence (i.e. greater then 120rpm). Pedal easy for 90 seconds and repeat the acceleration/recovery cycle 6 times adding 10 seconds to both the acceleration and the recovery period each cycle. Cool down with 10 minutes of easy spinning. If you have a coach with you at a workout, you can also do a whistle fartlek set. After an appropriate warm up you wait for your coach's whistle to accelerate your pace when the coach whistles again you can return to steady state aerobic pace. This can be repeated with several intervals of varying length as well as with varying lengths of recovery periods between accelerations. This type of fartlek set can be used in the pool, on a track or on an indoor trainer. In the pool, you can do a long swim set of continuous swimming where you increase your speed for 1 to 2 lengths at a time. An example of this might be swim easy to moderate effort for 150m then swim 50m hard effort, repeating for 10 cycles will give you a 2000m workout. While trail running, warm up for 10 minutes then start with a 45 second acceleration. Over the next 20 minutes, repeat the 45 second acceleration every 3-5 minutes. Cool down with 10 minutes of easy running. When introducing fartlek training, try to ensure the set is at least 20 minutes in duration. The warm up and cool down should be in addition to the 20 minutes of fartlek interval training. ALL THE ABOVE IS TOO COMPLICATED. SO MANY DIFFERENT TIMES. GO TO THE NATURAL FARTLEK TRAINING GROUND, OUR VERY OWN PEARL HILL!!! The uphill ride on Pearl Hill will constitute the strenous part of the ride (anaerobic) and if u can train at 80% of your maximum heart rate (220 -age), it will be ideal. The downhill ride will constitute the easy pace where your heart rate should revert to less then 50% of your maximum heart rate and the lactic acid in your muscles should be flushed out and you are ready for another round of Pearl Hill. Pearl Hill is a natural Fartlek training ground just like a hill in Virginia, USA, Marine Corps training ground which was named FARTLEK HILL. Good Luck and Happy Training |
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Pearl Hill is good place for training because it's a much safer place than the roads. When you are struggling on your way up, you can focus on say improving your breathing or pedaling techniques but I believe it's harder and much more harzardous to do this when you are on the main roads.
It's called interval training in cycling world. Google it and you will find lots of info about it.
For runners, most high end threadmill machine will hv this function where,intermittently it alternates between high speed and low speed and I inadvertently suddenly realised that I am doing a Fartlek on Pearl Hill with a natural settings with its up and down.The 2 Km uphill at 10kph 13 minutes ride is strenuous enough for lactic acid built up (anaerobic exercise) and the 3 minutes downhill ride to the foothill should be sufficient for a good recovery and for the built up lactic acid to be metabolised.
Noticed in a short time, the cycling muscles and the cardiovascular improvemnet were tremendous as compared to plain flat road cycling and I hv a lousy sense of keeping track of how many minutes to to the interval, so the hill is very natural up and down, and up and down as many time as your body or time permit :-)))
Naah, I prefer the "real" thing. The daily ride to the 800m mark and back(if time permits) should be enough for training up the strength and stamina. Of course, try to time it and get it doen in the shortest time as possible. At the beginning I will curse, puke and run out of breath. But as I continue my strength and stamina build and the mileage increses from 100km/week to 200km/week and ultimately 700km/week, provided if time permitted lah....:)