Met up with Andy and Nick this morning for a run down to the track at Maisons Laffitte. Hadn't seen Andy for a while so it was good to catch up on what had been going on over the Summer holidays.
It became quickly apparent that Andy had spent some time training over the Summer as we were going a lot quicker down to the stadium than our last session earlier this year. I personally think that he wants to regain his title as triathlon champion in a couple of weeks, hence the increase in the training schedule - we'll have to wait and see what mid September brings. It was 5km down to the track for me and then we let Andy decide what the punishment was to be. He had met up with some old friends in the States and had been reminiscing about earlier years and track records from his youth. We decided that we would run 1000m flat out just to see what we were capable of nowadays and go on from there.
We warmed up for a couple of laps and then set off. I hit start on the Garmin and then didn't look at it until the finish line. Nick and Andy were just behind me over the first lap and then I began to pull away slightly. The last lap was just a question of holding on as I could feel the lactic building up in my legs. It was a relief to hit the finish line in a time of 3:17 with Nick finishing 10-15 seconds later and Andy just after him. I was beat and couldn't believe that my youngest brother runs 10km at this pace. 1 km was ample for me. We always knew that he's a better runner than me - this just proves that he's 10 times better !!
We warmed down for a couple more laps and then decided to race a 400m. I set off quickly again and this time I heard Nick breathing down my ear all along the back straight. We went around the final bend and he pulled wide to go past me. I couldn' pull anything out of the bag and despite a feable attempt to pick up the pace down the last 40m, he beat me by a metre. All up in 70.1 with Nick finishing in 69.9. Can't believe that I once raced 800m in 2:13.
We ran back slowly to Andy's after that as he had to be back early. I carried on with a loop of the normal Sunday course which I went around at about 13.5 kmh pace. So all in all, I managed 23.8 km in just under 2 hours. Still determined to do well in the marathon at end October.
Footing
10 years ago
2 comments:
James & Nick, it was great to run with you again after a long break. I have run 7 times in past 14 days and that is a big change from once a week. Your training is paying dividends and that's motivated me to get out there in the mornings.
Just watch out that you don't overdo it though Andy. You should build up the distance and sessions regularly to avoid injury.
Great to see you getting back in shape though and looking forward to seeing you in a few races with Nick and I.
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