Hey everyone, I did my first fartlek yesterday as one of the Nike Guided Runs. The thing is that the coach was saying to do my efforts at 5k pace, and the recovery at recovery pace. I’ve never done a ‘fast’ race-like 5k since I’ve just started running so my ‘5k’ pace felt quite low and the transition to recovery pace wasn’t a big transition at all. For reference, I was running recovery at roughy 6:45 / km and the efforts at 6:15. Should I run my efforts faster and my recovery slower?
5k pace is pretty fast, as in you can’t comfortably talk to someone next to you. Recovery pace should feel very easy and where you could easily have a conversation with someone. So it depends, but it sounds like the difference could be bigger.