"I’m just off to do some Fartlek-training"

AS WELL as being the most ear-pricking word I’ve ever heard, the Swedish word “Fartlek”.

“Fartlek” - which means “speed-play” - is also a specific type of endurance-building athletic training, in which strenuous effort and normal effort alternate in a continuous exercise.

Here’s an example of Fartlek-training:

1. Easy running for five to 10 minutes.

2. Hard speed for seven or eight.

3. Rapid walking for about five.

4. Easy running interspersed with sprints of about 50-60 metres, repeated until tired.

5. Easy running with three or four “quick steps” now and then.

6. Full speed uphill for 175-200 metres.

7. Fast pace for one minute.

8. Repeat.

Sounds awful tough, doesn’t it? And people who’ve done it claim it’s tough - harping on about hamstrings, ligaments, Ralgex spray, and the like. But pfff ! Stuff and nonsense! I swear you can train Fartlek-style for three days solid, without even knowing you’re doing it. In fact, you might have done it already, but you just haven’t realised.

Take me, for example. Right now, I’m lying upstairs on my bed - as still as a knight on a marble slab, staring up at the ceiling, my eyes crossed in different directions - and it’s just dawned on me that I’ve done Fartlek-training for three days straight! I didn’t have a stop-watch, or a pair of runners, and I certainly wasn’t wearing spandex shorts. I did the whole thing in a green jumper, pair of jeans, and ankle boots with Cuban heels. Yes! That’s right! Cuban heels!

What’s more, I didn’t make a fuss. I didn’t say, “I’m just off [serious exercise-face] to do some really challenging Fartlek-training, so I better get my spandex on.” Quite the opposite! I just cracked on. And I laughed the whole way through, apart from once, when I tried to cook a leg of venison for 12 people while I was doing it, which is a task in itself, Fartlek or no Fartlek. That was stupid, and I confess I nearly cried, particularly when I realised no one wanted to eat it, apart from my brother-in-law, whose idea the venison was, and who brought the bloody thing in the first place.

So here’s how you do Fartlek training for three days straight. If, as you read along, you find you’ve done it too, then I tell you what I’m going to do! I’m going to send you a Fartlek badge! So that you can flash it at anyone who says “I’m just off [serious exercise-face] to do some really challenging Fartlek-training, so I better get my spandex on.”

1. Invite four nephews and nieces - aged 10, eight, five, and two - for weekend. (NB you won’t notice the strain half as much if the nephews and nieces are nice, like mine, and look at me like I’m a tube of Smarties, even when I put venison in front of them.)

2. Invite your own four children (again - nice ones are best) back from college for same weekend to spend time with cousins. THE COUSINS MUST BE SMALL; you need that sustained, bursting-face sensation that chasing around after four really young children produces. It’s not enough that your heart-rate sky-rockets when your own children come in the door saying, “sorry, but my college-rent is overdue”. That won’t do - not by itself.

3. When you’ve assembled eight children, let the thought, “they’re ALL going to be hungry, ALL the time,” cross your mind. See if that doesn’t get you sprinting.

4. Then think about bedding.

5. Find it. (That’ll take care of “easy running with three or four quick steps now and then”.)

6. You MUST have two dogs that suddenly take against your sister’s dog; keeping the dogs apart means you’ll do “full speed uphill for 175-200 metres” six times before lunch. It’s better still if their dog breaks your house rules by sitting on your sofa. You’ll find getting it off the sofa is a stand-alone Fartlek exercise all in itself.

8. LINK THE VISIT TO HALLOWEEN; what with the effects of trick-or-treating and associated sugar-rush on four under-10s, you’ll have “easy running interspersed with sprints of about 50-60 metres” under your belt in no time.

9. Repeat.

Pfff !