As a New Year’s resolution, many in the Bay Area probably hoped to lace up their running shoes again; I know I did. But the omicron variant, coupled with the usual frantic pace of the month, upended those best-laid plans.
I haven’t run a single step so far this year. It’s not too late, though. With the arrival of Lunar New Year on Tuesday, Feb. 1, I’m proposing a do-over of sorts, a post-surge reset of our intentions, hopes and dreams for 2022.
It marks the beginning of the Year of the Tiger; famous tigers — said to be brave and confident — include poet Amanda Gorman, who turns 24; singer Lady Gaga, who will clock in at 36, and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who will ring in at 48. I’m hoping to channel some of their tiger energy.
Years ago, in Portland, Ore., when I ran my first and only marathon, my husband joined me at mile 20, running alongside to root me on, encouraging me even after I told him I’d lost the will to speak. As I approached the finish line, I summoned what I had left in me and sprinted the rest of the way.
In that glorious moment, I felt like I could do anything if I set my mind to it. It probably helped that I was 27 years old, and the world had not yet careened so deeply into the apocalypse.
I don’t have plans to run that distance again, but I’ve realized there’s another way to recover that feeling, if only briefly, if only for 30 seconds to a minute, again and again in a single run: Let me introduce you to fartlek.
Developed in the 1930s, fartlek (Swedish for “speed play”) involves alternating fast, intense bursts with an easier pace. It resembles high-intensity interval training and Tabata, though the methods vary in the specific details. The benefits are numerous: It’s a time-efficient workout that improves your endurance, but it also works as a metaphor, a reminder to push ourselves outside of the comfort zone — quite literally! — and routine that we find ourselves in.
Previously, I’ve written about how my pedal exerciser and swimming have sustained me these many months; other experiments, though fun, didn’t last — not the running podcasts in which I got chased by zombies, the upbeat Instagram dance workouts led by choreographer Ryan Heffington or the walks at dawn.
Those activities helped get me through those pandemic days and were what I could manage at the time — a time that felt interminable, a time that hasn’t ended.
I’d been preparing to make fartleks a regular part of my routine. In late fall — in a burst of motivation and with a pair of kicky new blue running shoes — I would pick out a tree or a mailbox in the not too far distance and run flat out, powered by the driving beat of electronic dance music.
Then I’d let up, but not for too long, before I eyed my next target, repeating until done. Some days I would run more intervals, sometimes less, acknowledging that I would feel at times energetic and at times tired and stressed about the state of the world, my family and my work.
I should clarify: This month, I have gone for long hikes, bike rides and swims. But for me, fartleks require mustering a higher level of motivation to get out the door — despite knowing how much better I feel even when I’m panting, my heart pounding.
The truth is, we can be metaphorically asleep when our bodies are on the move. Pandemic or not, we may sleepwalk through our days in a haze — daze? — of overwhelming worries.
I’m counting on fartleks to wake me up again.