Ode on the Fartlek

There are few greater joys than running fast and free. At its core, running is about building and expressing speed. One of the ways we choose to express this hard-earned speed is through racing. We track distances and log times in a coordinated effort to document speed. We post about fast times on Strava and, sometimes, on Instagram and Facebook. We caption our slow days with names like “great recovery run” and “kept it under 140 bpm” so everyone knows we were intentionally not running fast. At the end of the year we share our packaged, consolidated data, including total miles run, average paces, and improvement from January to December.

A data-driven training plan is an excellent tool, one I lean on pretty heavily myself. But there’s something to be said for expressing speed without the constraints of a proscribed workout, a pace-plan that’s been on the calendar for weeks. Running, in its true form, is about freedom.

Fartlek, in the Swedish, means “speed play.” A fartlek is a type of workout in which the runner, literally, plays with speed. Feel like running fast? Run fast for a few minutes. Want to switch to threshold pace? Bounce between 5k and marathon pace? Go ahead. There is no proscribed intensity, just run as fast as you want for as long as you want and drop the pace when you need to.

There is something incredibly gratifying about stepping out of the regular training pattern and just running how you want to, when you want to. This is, after all, how we all learned to run. As kids, we first learned to walk and, after mastering that skill, began exploring how fast our feet could take us. Running around a playground, down a dirt road, or through an open field is an expression of speed fueled by curiosity and a lack of concern for limitations. Our inner child isn’t concerned with numbers.

It’s this childlike discovery and ecstasy that I feel when I let the pace go and just run. It’s not something that needs to happen on a weekly basis, but can be interspersed every few weeks. I find it important not to schedule a fartlek, but to just let it happen. Some days I just need to run without constraints. I try to run fartleks on speed days because, after all, they are a speed workout. But putting a label on it, only fitting it in if it makes sense, defeats the purpose of doing it.

The freedom that comes with running without a watch, or without a proscribed pace, is crucial to maintaining a healthy state of mind for a runner. Too often on social media, in podcasts, or in conversations with other athletes I see people getting caught up in the numbers, allowing their identity to become intertwined with how fast they run, whether they hit their weekly mileage, or how many sprints they do on speed days. While our sport is about doing all you can do get faster, it can’t come at the price of your mental health.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States and I’ve been debating for several weeks how best to approach the topic. While we are certainly getting better as a society, mental illness is still a relatively taboo subject and that needs to change. I’ve never struggled seriously with mental health, but I have friends and family who actively battle it. I’ve had a friend commit suicide. I’ve known others who came close. I bring this up to reiterate that mental illness is a real struggle that many around us deal with. And often we don’t even realize it.

While the physical act of running provides solace to so many people, the sport offers another form of medicine in other runners. It’s been shown time and time again that the most important thing in helping someone struggling with mental health is for someone to reach out to them. While the running community is far from perfect, it offers an opportunity to help those around us with just a few words. Take the time to ask the people around you how they are doing and, more importantly, listen. In many cases, the thing that stopped someone from doing something irreversible was a friend asking “how are you?”

I’m not a psychologist and I am certainly not a subject-matter expert. But I do know that freeing yourself from the constraints of pace and time can help increase your peace of mind, if only fractionally. Fartleks offer the opportunity to take a step away from your regular routine and ease the regular stressors in your life. But beyond running, if you’re struggling please reach out to those around you. If you aren’t battling mental illness yourself, check up on the people you run with and be cognizant that they may be working through something you aren’t aware of. They might just need someone to talk to.

At the end of the day, mental health is a serious issue that affects many more people than we have statistics for. If you are struggling, reach out to someone around you. There are also more resources that are available. In the United States you can dial 911 and ask for the mental health hotline. Most churches and religious centers are open for those who need to talk. If those options fail or are not available, you can visit the National Alliance on Mental Health website.

There are many ways you can help raise awareness for mental health in your own community, but for runners one option is to organize a Blue Jean Mile. In 2019, Johnny Gregorek broke the world record for one mile in blue jeans in an effort to bring more attention to those struggling with mental illnesses. While you might not be able to break the world record, running a mile in blue jeans is a small representation of the pain and discomfort that comes with mental illnesses. It is also a great way to talk to people about mental health when you get questions about why you aren’t wearing regular running gear. You don’t, however, have to organize an event or run an online campaign to help those struggling right now. The battle against mental illness begins with three words: How are you?