Ah the winter blues have hit us all. A good way to spice up the running base training of winter is a good speed session.

You can accomplish this in a few ways...
1. Find a local road race (5 km to 8 km is optimum, no longer than 10 km or you are back to base pace)
2. Find a group of training partners and head to a track
3. Grab your mp3-player and hit the treadmill

In the middle of cold winter our legs tend to get used to base training pace. Mixing it up with some faster intervals is a great way to get the legs remembering the warm days of racing, to work on our form and to pump up that heart rate.

With that being said, a personal best should really not be the focus but rather whatever the interval or distance, good form and a solid finish should be. Start out a little slower than you would in the heart of the season, and try to end the race/session faster than you started.

Here is a great sample workout for the treadmill:

Warm up 15 minutes at base pace (let's assume 8 min pace/mile)

5 min at 8 % faster than base pace (about 7:25 pace)
4 min at 10% faster than base pace (about 7:10 pace)
3 min at 12% faster than base pace (about 7:00 pace)
2 min at 14% faster than base pace (about 6:50 pace)
1 min at 16% faster than base pace (about 6:30 pace)

Repeat twice. Keep the elevation of treadmill same - 0.5 to 1 % grade.
Rest interval is half of the running time i.e. 5 minute interval gets 2:30 rest.

For the track you can do the same but set up distances...
1600 meters
1200 meters
1000 meters
800 meters
400 meters

and repeat.

Remember pick an interval you can finish the complete session with. The idea is to do the full set and repeat...

Check out Matt's example of the interval training pace and base speed.

Cheers, fast feet and wishing you all great spring. Train Hard, Race Harder!

This tip is provided by Matthew Reed