lilscotboy, good luck with the IT band issues. I've had a few problems as well. Luckily my wife is a massage therapists so with some help from her and a lot of stretching, it seems to be better now. I'm just hoping it stays good with the build up in long runs.
Valpo,
I've done a lot of speed work this spring but that was all focussed on 5k and 10k's. So a lot of 400m repeats and short stuff. I've started doing some 3 or 4 mile runs and just tried to work on keeping a little higher tempo than usual to get used to running longer. That fartlek sounds interesting.