Workout of the Week: The Roches’ ‘Recess’ Repeats
This short-and-sweet session teaches you to be comfortable at faster paces.
Running fast should be fun, but trail running power couple David and Megan Roche give new meaning to the term “speed play” with a little workout they like to call “Recess.”
“This is our go-to workout for trail speed,” explains David Roche, a Nike Trail Elite athlete and USATF’s men’s sub-ultra trail runner of the year in 2014, “because we get to run like kids with just a few minutes to burn off energy before getting back to work.”
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Here’s how to do it: Find a dirt path or smooth stretch of road that has a slight grade to it, ideally 1-3 percent. Warm up with 20 minutes of easy running followed by four 15-second uphill sprints to loosen up your legs. The workout is 10 x 45-60 seconds at a fast—but relaxed—pace on a slight downhill with a slow jog back to your starting point as the recovery between each repetition.
“The ‘recess’ workout teaches our bodies to feel comfortable at faster paces, which is important even for longer trail races,” says Megan Roche, who, like her husband, is a Nike Trail Elite athlete and was also named the 2014 USATF sub-ultra trail runner of the year. “It builds running efficiency and it can be a surprisingly difficult aerobic stimulus once your body learns to go faster.”
David Roche says to focus on what he calls “smooth speed” on each downhill repeat, just letting your legs flow without hitting a predetermined pace. In fact, after timing the first repeat, he recommends establishing a landmark to reach for the final nine reps, because “It’s not true recess if you’re worried about being judged by the watch!”
Following the 10th repeat, cool down with another 20 minutes of easy running before calling it a day. The Roches, who call Sunnyvale, Calif., home, recommend doing this workout about once every 10 days throughout the year, regardless of the focus of your training.
“The most important training principle we both agree on is that speed can be learned,” says David Roche, “and it’s a skill that can also be unlearned without practice.”