I love my Tuesday night track sessions

During Eluid Kipchoge’s build-up to the Ineos 1:59 Challenge, where the Kenyan legend became the first human to break the sub-two-hour marathon, his training week contained a mix of hard and easy efforts, strength work, and track training.

Time and time again, in Africa and all around the globe, the best road runners include at least one track session a week. And yet, track running is something that’s rarely utilized by recreational runners.

The Science Behind Track Running

The evidence behind interval training for not only runners, but any endurance athlete, is conclusive. These bursts of high-intensity work followed by brief rest periods build the top-end speed missing from one-paced amateur athletes who spend too long training in their mid-zone.

There is some evidence that suggests that intervals on the track are more superior to similar intervals completed on trails, road or park. 42 recreational runners were recruited by U.S. scientists in 2018 and split into the following two groups: