HITTING THE ATHLETICS TRACK WITH CONFIDENCE - 4 TIPS, 3 SESSIONS AND 1 TRACK DIRECTORY
If you’re someone who has always looked at an athletics track from afar but hasn’t stepped foot on one since school days, then do yourself a favour and head to your local for a few hot laps.
I say hot laps, because no matter how fast or slow you think you are, the aths track will make you feel like you’re running much faster than your usual concrete jogging loop.
The 4 tips and 3 sessions below will see you stepping foot on your nearest athletics track with the confidence of that short shorts wearing club runner who’s been there for years.
4 TRACK ETIQUETTE TIPS - I’ll give credit to Julian Spence who gave these tips on The Inside Running Podcast. Do yourself a favour and have a listen, it’s one of my favourite podcasts.
1. Everyone is welcome - Your age and ability don’t matter and you don’t need to be part of a club or training group to be there. So enjoy it.
2. Lane 1 is for fast running - Fast running is considered your hard effort. It doesn’t matter if it’s 3 or 6 minute per km pace, if it’s your hard effort you can run in lane 1. If you’re walking, easy jogging or warming up, head to the outside lanes.
3. Stay left - if you’re doing an effort and hear someone coming from behind, stay left and in your current lane. The person coming from behind will move around you.
4. Be aware - Consider others, don’t congregate or suddenly stop in the middle of the track. If you’re finishing your effort, take a quick look over your shoulder before you step off the track.
Now you might be wondering what sessions you should do at the track.
Firstly, save the track for any moderate to high intensity sessions and if you’re not used to the track, one visit a week should do the trick. Keep your jogs on the footpaths, grass and trails.
If you’ve got a training plan (even better, a Run Rabbit program) you could take any session that’s not just a jog and move it to the track.
Here are 3 SESSIONS for beginners which can be modified to suit anyone;
Fartlek - After a warm up jog, complete 2 minutes moderate - solid run, 1 minute easy jog X 5 - 10. Just put on your watch, go hard in lane 1 and go easy in the outside lanes.
Reps - 400m (1 lap) moderate - solid, 200m jog or walk X 4 - 8.
Threshold - Run for 5-10 minutes at an easy-moderate pace. Walk/jog 1 lap. Repeat, aiming to run the same amount of laps, in the same amount of time. Eg. 10min moderate, 1 lap jog, 10 min moderate.
A word of warning for anyone who’s a slave to their GPS watch, your distance on a track will appear to be further than the actual track measurement. If you’re running 1km on the track (2 ½ laps), your GPS will tend to show up to around 1050m. The inaccuracy is caused by running around bends. So always take the track distance of 400m per lap as the actual distance of your training or Time Trial.
Don’t be that person who stops at the 2.9km track mark of their 3km time trial just because the GPS beeped.
If you’re living in Victoria, you’re spoilt for choice. We’ve got more synthetic athletics tracks than any other State and Inside Athletics have put together a TRACK DIRECTORY to find your nearest one.
Enjoy your hot laps at the track!