Bank holiday Tuesday

The club session for today had been set for a 9:00 am start due to the bank holiday today in France. Laurence had persuaded Anne to take part so Nick and Anne picked us up this morning to take us to St Germain.

Luckily the wind had calmed this morning since lat night it had been blowing a gale and frankly during the night there were times when we wondered whether the roof would stay on the house. Laurence heard a few tiles moving during the night and slept badly as a result. When we checked this morning, everything appeared to be alright though.

It was an excellent turnout for this morning's session and a good 70 souls had decided to exercise rather than spend the morning in bed. The programme for the day was 7 x 1 minute twice. We set off easily and chatted to the usual faces as we warmed up over the first 4.5 km. The hard work then began and I tried to stay in the leading group with Thierry, Francisco, Miguel - the trainer, and Bruno. There were a couple of other faces who were also pushing at times and the competition was fierce.

The first set of 7 were extremely tough and I was very tired when we finished this block. According to the Garmin, I managed to achieve 25 km/h during the first set on intervals 3 and 4. This was the impact of Miguel who was pushing Thierry and Francisco and both Bruno and I were hanging on due to sheer determination only.

The second set was less rapid as I was already spent by then. The big hill on interval n° 3 didn't help either. My heart rate must have maxed at this point and for once it would have been interesting to have a cardio on to see what I got to. Anyway it was a relief to finish the set and to jog back to the clubhouse with Nick.

Laurence and Anne had had a good time and Anne had enjoyed her first session with the club, chatting easily to the other members. Highlight of the morning was having breakfast afterwards at Nick and Anne's house, relaxing with a nice coffee.

15.3 km all up in 1:28. Nice way to spend a bank holiday morning.