Finishing Speed Work

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.