More intervals

I turned up for tonight's session not knowing what had been planned. I had hoped that following Tuesday's workout that tonight would be a little easier, especially since a lot of runners from the club are racing this Sunday over a 10k course.

I should have known better. Having changed into my running kit, Miguel announced that the plan for tonight was 3 x 3' off 1'30 recovery. OK not too bad. Oh, but he hadn't finished. That was for the runners racing on Sunday. For the others present he had some further surprises in store ... 6' with 3' recovery followed by 2 x 3' off 1'30 recovery.

In for a penny, in for a pound. Off we set.

The session started fast enough. The first intervals were led by those who were only doing the first 3. Those of us who were carrying on were trying to keep a little energy in reserve. This energy was fast disipating in the heat and the humidity though. It was around 18°C and the humidity was high. Even after the first interval, my shirt was soaked in sweat and my legs felt heavy.

I ran with Mireille and Bruno, staying ahead of them over the first 3 intervals, but behind Nick. I then ran jsut behind them over the 6' interval and a good 10 metres behind them over the penultimate interval. Miguel told me to stick with them and then Mireille told me to take the lead over the final session. This was all the encouragement I needed to pull out all the stops and to give the last interval my best effort. I led everyone around until the last 50 metres when Bruno came flying past. He'd obviously been watching his watch looking at the remaining time whereas I'd just been concentrating on the pace.

Another tough session overall which should pay in the next race. We were running the intervals at just below 16km/h in my opinion. The Garmin recorded the max speeds at between 15.7 and 16.6 km/h which I felt was reasonable.

15.2 km all up in 1:27 or an average of 5:45 per km. Humidity made the going tough tonight.