Running skills

Specific (and simple) running sessions will freshen up your schedule and boost your fitness quicker than just running the same old paths

Words: Anna Harding

If you’re looking to make your running a little more interesting, you don’t need to overthink it. In fact, we are doing the hard work for you, by giving you suggestions of workouts we think will work well for you and that you’ll enjoy (the only thing we can’t do is run for you!).

Whether you’re training for a race or running for fitness, variety can help you stay motivated and make progress. Adding some variation into your paces when running is a great way to improve both your aerobic and anaerobic endurance, increase your VO2 max and improve your overall running performance.

We’d recommend that you incorporate one of these types of sessions into your weekly running schedule, rather than trying to squeeze them all into one week. You can cycle through a few that take your fancy and then repeat them after a few weeks to measure improvements. Make sure you give yourself rest days around your harder interval sessions too.

If you have a sports watch, you should be able to programme some of these workouts into it, so that you don’t have to try and remember it all when you’re actually out on the run. Most watches will prompt you as to what you should be doing, when and for how long. And many will let you set a pace for each interval or chunk; useful if you’re targeting some specific speeds.

If you are going to have a go at some of the sessions, make sure you warm up first. Start with 10-15 minutes of some light jogging, followed by three of four dynamic stretches or some running drills, such as hamstring sweeps and high knees. This will help get your body ready for some faster movement and reduce the risk of injury.

When you get to the recovery part of a session, it’s fine to walk it, or just do a very light jog. Try not to just stand still though, as you may quickly seize up, which will make it more difficult to start the next rep and could end in injury. The idea of the recoveries is just that: to recover. So you want to be focusing on deep breaths and really getting your heart rate back down, ready to go again.