Fighting fit

Usual early morning run this morning, but the motivation is getting harder to find with the sun rising ever later. Dawn was just breaking as I set out this morning and I didn't have the same spring in my legs for the beginning as I ran down by the Seine. I went through 2 km in 8:24 and sure enough the time was slower than Tuesday. So much for running a personal best today.

As I was running, pondering this over, the running magazines that I had been reading the previous night were present in my mind. The articles in question concerned 30-30 training and how all training schedules should include sections where you run at max speed (but not sprinting) for 30 seconds and then run for 30 seconds at a recovery speed. This process is then repeated for about 8 times in a cycle and you should include 2 cycles in the run. I had told Laurence that I would try this out this morning but mentally, I just wasn't up for it.

Damn it, I couldn't just give up like that and since I want to improve my times further in this new season, I upped the pace. I wasn't ready to do the intervals but I was still ready to push the pace beyond my usual relaxed training speed. I could definitely feel the impact that this increase had on my breathing and general effort but it wasn't too tiring and I left the park in 26:05 after 6.5km. This was a real boost to the morale and I knew that I was on for a good time if I could keep it up.

I ran up to the end of Blvd Pasteur and the garmin showed 34:15 so I was maintaining the rhythm. Another boost and the downhill to the town-hall and through the 10km mark in 41:12 followed by a long stretch to finish and the 11.1 km route managed in 45:17. A new personal best and an excellent result at an average pace of 4:06 per km. Thoroughly chuffed !