Sprint finish

The alarm went off at 7:00am and the radio came on. It took a while for me to realise where I was and what I was supposed to be doing at this time in the morning. The radio commentator was going wild in the meantime: Alain Bernard had taken gold in front of Eamon Sullivan for the 100m swimming freestyle final. I was really pleased for this medal as the competition between the two was intense with Sullivan reclaiming the world record 3 minutes after Bernard had taken it from him during the semis.

So, finally realising what I was supposed to be doing, I slipped on my running kit and set off on the usual course around town. I ran down to the Seine and was happy with my speed down by the river. I didn't have any excuses to go slowly though as the day had started sunny, but cool and completely still. My legs had a will of their own and were turning over without any apparent control from my brain. I just turned my brain off and enjoyed the ride !

2 km went by in 8:15 and I was feeling really good; so unlike Tuesday's run when moving my legs had been really hard work. As the day wasn't as hot as previous mornings, maintaining this rhythm wasn't too much of an effort and I was still runing well when I left the park after 6.5km in 27:12. Admittedly, when I glanced at my watch at this point, I was a little disappointed as I had expected to see 26:5x but I was having so much fun at this point that even this didn't slow me down.

I didn't fade in the second half of the course either and every time I felt myself relaxing too much, I pushed my stride length to pick up the pace and relaunch my running rhythm. I didn't look at my watch until the final sprint for home. When I pressed the stop button, I had managed the 11.1km course in 46:05 a new PB at an average pace of 4:10 per km. Extremely pleased.