Mona

Coaching tonight, in just over an hour to be exact. On the menu for the running session is that classic threshold session, the Mona Fartlek. For those unfamiliar the Mona looks like this:

2 x 90 seconds effort / 90 seconds float
4 x 60 seconds effort / 60 seconds float
4 x 30 seconds effort / 30 seconds float
4 x 15 seconds effort / 15 seconds float.

20 minutes total.

It is named after Steve Moneghetti as it was developed by himself and his coach. The story is that they developed the Fartlek to combat the speed change attacks from the Kenyan runners. Apparently he knew he was world class racing fit when he could cover 7km during the Fartlek. I will let you do the math on that one and then just leave that there...

It is a nice versatile session because you can make it fit whatever level of fitness you currently have. Just getting back into things? No problem, go a bit easier. Preparing for a race? Great, go a bit harder, It can be made to fit just about everyone. For the group tonight who are all pretty race fit, the effort is done above threshold and the float is done just below threshold, so that it sort of averages out at 20 minutes of threshold running. It doesn't seem like much when you see it on paper, just 20 minutes of effort. But when you realise that it equates to about a 5000m threshold effort then you realise it isn't a walk in the park. Which is exactly what people will find tonight.

The other nice thing about the session is that you can use it as a benchmark. Just like a 5km time trial or any other distance, once you know how far you can travel in a Mona, you then have something to compare future sessions too. If you incorporate a Mona into your training every 6 weeks or so, you have a built in session by which you can measure your progress. As I said above, that is exactly how Moneghetti used it too.

While the session is physically tough, I am pretty sure that for some people the hardest part of the session is actually remembering it, from my perspective that is certainly the most difficult bit. No matter how careful I am, or how slowly I say it, there are always people who just can't remember it. Usually I try and provide people with a file that they can download to their Garmins which will give them all the timings, rather than try and get them to memorise it, but even still, it there will always be some. I suspect tonight will be no different.

Still, always a great session. Short, sharp, quite hard, but always very fulfilling at the end.