What to do if you have little time to train?

A lot has been said lately about training slow to run fast but what if you can only train twice a week for one hour, should you run slow and expect to race fast?

First of the bat, it will be hard to race fast and/or to your potential if all the time you have to train is 2 hours per week but as life sets in, it is a reality for a lot of people that running is secondary to family and work obligations, more like a hobby. So should you still train slowly and expect to be able to crank up the pace on race day if all you do is run slow for 2 hours per week? My quick answer is a resounding 'No!'

If all you have is 2 hours per week, I would suggest separating your run time into 4 segments and running 4 times a week with 3 easy slow runs at 180-age heart rate or less for 30 minutes each and one faster run which could be a threshold or interval workout. You won't get enough stimulus to your body to help you run at a fast clip if all you do is run slow for 4 runs of 30 min or 2 hours total. So, instead do one fast run per week or two if you can. Make sure you warm-up for at least 10 min and then pick-up the pace. So a 30 min progression run can work too. 10 min easy running then every 2 min go faster and faster. If you don't have time to warm-down, a walk back to your office or house is also fine.

If you don't know what a threshold or interval run is, please look at my other posts. In short, a threshold run is a run where you will run at a pace you can hold for an hour in a race. Certain watches like the new Garmin ones will even help you by showing you the right HR or pace to reach in order to run at your threshold pace.

Intervals should be repetitions of a certain distance such as 400 meter repeats or 800 or 1km or 1 mile. If you have little time to train, I would also suggest jogging the rest period instead of standing still, which will also be beneficial for your overall fitness.