Finishing Speed. This is your kick at the end of a race. Depending on the distance being run, this can be the last quarter mile or 200 yards of a 5k or even the last whole mile of a marathon.
The way to work on your kick or finishing speed is to work on shorter distance at the end of your workout. For a 5k workout which is what I am concentrating on, you should run a few miles at moderate to tempo speed and then finish up with 100's, 200's, or 440's. The meat of the workout can be just a couple miles. You are only trying to tire yourself out before the sprint portions at the end.
For my workout yesterday afternoon, I warmed up with 1.25 miles at a slow pace. Then, I tired my legs with 2 x 880 in 3:08 and 3:11 respectively. My goal for these was to run them within 3:15. Check.
To work on my finishing speed, I ran 4 x 220 with 110 recoveries. I haven't run 220's in awhile, so I wasn't sure how much to give. I ran a 44 on the first one, which is barely faster than the speed I ran on the 880's. Time to leave a little more on the track. I followed that up with 38, 37, and a 34. I can hardly believe that I used to run these in the mid 20's during track practice in high school... and a lot more of them.
It felt great to get some real fast turnover during a workout.
1 comment:
got to love that speed work.
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